Abstract
The assurance of asphalt pavement layer compaction, expressed by ratio between field and laboratory bulk density and air voids content, is one of the main criteria of the durability of asphalt road pavement. Destructive measures should be applied and cores should be taken from the asphalt pavement seeking to determine the representative compaction level of the constructed asphalt layers. New methods are constantly being sought for fast, non-destructive and accurate asphalt layer density and air void determination on road. Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) can allow determining the qualitative characteristics of asphalt pavement across the entire length of the road without causing damage to the road structure. Relative dielectric permittivity, usually called dielectric value or constant, is the leading property used in GPR applications on road pavement surveys. This article presents GPR measurement results from asphalt base and binder layers of four test sections. GPR measurements were conducted immediately after the end of asphalt layer compaction process. Test points on each layer were selected and density, air void content were determined by drilling cores and testing them in the laboratory. To estimate asphalt layer density and air void content, GPR data were analysed using different existing mathematical models. To justify the reliability of the data measured by GPR, results were checked by comparing them with the results measured directly on cores taken from the asphalt pavement layers.
Highlights
The degree of compaction of asphalt pavement and air void content are currently two of the most important controlled quality parameters of paved and compacted asphalt pavement layers in Lithuania
Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) technology can be advantageous in this case as it does not damage the asphalt pavement, measurements are done quickly, cheaply, and most importantly, the field bulk density and the air void content are determined across the entire length of the road (Kassem, Chowdhury, Scullion, & Masad, 2016)
These results can lead to the conclusion that higher dispersion of the dielectric value results from the average on road section No 2 was mainly due to the uneven Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) measurements, since the standard deviation of the cores measured by standard methods did not show any unevenness in the asphalt paving, compaction or mix properties on different road sections
Summary
The degree of compaction (may refer to density ratio or the percent compaction) of asphalt pavement and air void content are currently two of the most important controlled quality parameters of paved and compacted asphalt pavement layers in Lithuania. Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) technology can be advantageous in this case as it does not damage the asphalt pavement, measurements are done quickly, cheaply, and most importantly, the field bulk density and the air void content are determined across the entire length of the road (Kassem, Chowdhury, Scullion, & Masad, 2016). The bulk density of asphalt and the air void content were determined by standard methods and compared with the results determined with GPR. 1. Determination of asphalt pavement layer density and air void content using GPR. During the theoretical and experimental studies conducted in the laboratory and on the trial road section, the application of the CRIM and Bottcher methods showed that the asphalt core bulk density correlated well with the GPR density results. Inaccurate results occurred mostly due to the inappropriate choice of equipment or an approach, a small number of calibration cores, external interference, or improper data processing (Lalagüe, 2014; Maser & Carmichael, 2015; Pellinen, Huuskonen-Snicker, Eskelinen, & Martinez, 2015; Sebesta et al, 2012; Sebesta, Wang, Scullion, & Liu, 2006)
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