COMPARISON OF RESULTS OBTAINED FROM THE LCPC RUTTING TESTER WITH PAVEMENTS OF KNOWN FIELD PERFORMANCE

In France the Laboratoire Central des Ponts et Chaussees (LCPC) rutting tester has been used successfully for 15 years to prevent rutting. The Colorado Department of Transportation and the FHWA's Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center were selected to demonstrate the equipment in the United States. Thirty-three sites across Colorado, with either good or poor rutting performance and various temperature and traffic conditions, were selected. Test results indicated that applying the French specification and the LCPC rutting tester was proved too severe for many of the temperature and environmental conditions in Colorado. However, once the testing temperature was adjusted to match the highest on-site temperature, the LCPC rutting tester did an excellent job of predicting pavement performance. The results from the LCPC rutting tester also had excellent correlation with actual rutting depths when temperature and traffic levels were considered.