Specialized Road Surfaces for Traction Test Purposes

There is a growing need for specialized road surfaces in order to conduct a variety of tire and/or vehicle tests. This need arises in such areas as vehicle and/or component testing required by various Department of Transportation standards, dynamic calibration surfaces for road-monitoring “skid trailers,” and comparison of tires at multiple sites on a common basis.

Surfaces which would fulfill this need should meet the following objectives:

1. 1.
   Be entirely prescribable, utilizing easily obtainable components and simple construction techniques. This would assure that any organization could produce a desired surface with confidence of specific and repeatable results.
2. 2.
   Provide the desired frictional characteristics. These could be “real world” surface characteristics, or a specific set of characteristics required as a particular test parameter.
3. 3.
   Exhibit reasonable durability.

This paper will approach the subject of specialized surface development by discussing the basic characteristics of road surfaces which influence their frictional performance and must be controlled to obtain the desired results. These frictional phenomena are then related to specific tests to explain how they can influence results.

This discussion will provide the basis for an outline of the development of a specialized road surface which was designed to meet the above objectives.