BENEFITS OF CONSTRUCTING SMOOTHER PAVEMENTS

Good Quality Control/Quality Assurance (QC/QA) practices are essential to obtain satisfactory pavements. QC/QA testing is a continuous process. One important round of QC/QA testing is smoothness testing. Most agencies require smoothness testing for each finished course of base, binder and surface. A 3-m straight edge is commonly used for this purpose. In this paper, a case study of a $120-million project is presented. The lack of smoothness testing and inadequacy of the project smoothness specifications led to an increase of $30 million in the project life-cycle costs.