Abstract
Density is one of the most important parameters in the construction of asphalt mixtures and pavement engineering. When a mixture is properly designed and compacted, it will contain enough air voids to prevent plastic deformation but will have low enough air void content to prevent water ingress and moisture damage. By mapping asphalt pavement density, areas with air void content outside of the acceptable range can be identified to predict its future life and performance. We describe a new instrument, the pavement density profiler (PDP) that has evolved from many years of making measurements of asphalt pavement properties. This instrument measures the electromagnetic (EM) wave impedance to infer the asphalt pavement density (or air void content) locally and over profiles.
Highlights
Hot mix asphalt (HMA) pavement industry best practices state that asphalt density is a key indicator in the quality and longevity of pavement in new and refinished HMA driving surfaces
We have performed modelling to look at the magnitude of the water effect and the results show that the impact of surface water is very substantial
The air void content values are higher than the values encountered in most asphalt pavements
Summary
Hot mix asphalt (HMA) pavement industry best practices state that asphalt density (or compaction) is a key indicator in the quality and longevity of pavement in new and refinished HMA driving surfaces. Coring at several locations and conducting air void tests in the laboratory as indicated in [11] is a time consuming, costly, and destructive process; Desire for real-time feedback on compaction with devices that would increase productivity of the construction, facilitate shorter construction times, and reduce construction costs; Existing methods for density measurements such as nuclear gauges have added complexities relative to licensing, equipment handling, and storage; Existing methods all provide only point measurements at spatial limited pavement locations; Safety concerns for any operator in trafficked areas. PDP provides immediate on-site feedback through a simple, user-friendly software interface which delivers a real-time graphical display of the selected density indicator (relative permittivity, normalized density, air-void ratio, etc.; Figure 1, bottom) while the user collects data over a profile This methodology reduces (or eliminates) the time consuming, expensive, and most importantly invasive testing methods of coring and laboratory density measurements which are currently used for pavement quality assurance and quality control (QA/QC)
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