Experimental Investigation of Pavement Texture Characteristics

Pavement texture plays a vital role in the development of both pavement friction and tire wear. Hence, knowledge of the effect of texture parameters on friction and tire wear will certainly assist pavement engineers in designing pavements that improve tire life without compromising the all-important skid-resistance. This paper describes the second stage of a research project undertaken to identify the fundamental texture properties that are associated with friction and wear. A analytical methodology for computer modeling of pavement texture formulated during the previous stage is now applied to model actual pavement surfaces made of asphalt and concrete. The pavement surface profiles measured by a SURTRONIX 3+ profilometer in two perpendicular directions are converted to Auto Regressive Moving Average (ARMA) models. Then, these models are used to graphically regenerate the pavement surface using a Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) technique. Finally, it is shown why the surface texture frequency information obtained in this manner will be more meaningful for friction-wear-texture studies than the currently available empirical texture measuring techniques.