Influence investigation of morphological and distributional properties of surficial aggregates on skid resistance of asphalt pavement

Abstract

Skid resistance of the asphalt pavement is greatly influenced by the morphology and spatial distribution of surficial aggregates on the pavement. To clarify the correlation between them, this study accurately detects and segments the mesh of aggregates in the pavement model reconstructed by the laser scanner. Subsequently, three morphological indices (the peak height, cross-section form, and root-mean-square gradient of an aggregate) and two distributional indices (the aggregate spacing, and aggregate distribution dispersity) were calculated. Simultaneously, British pendulum number was also measured to represent the skid resistance of the pavement. At last, the correlation between the British pendulum number and five indices of surficial aggregates of the pavement was obtained using the grey relation method. Especially, the mesh segmentation algorithm developed was enhanced in splitting adhesive mesh of adjacent aggregates and restoring incorrectly splitted mesh of aggregates to improve the accuracy and robustness of the algorithm. Six regions on the surface of two rut specimens under SMA-16 and GAC-16 gradations were selected to analyze the correlation between British pendulum number and the five indices. Results indicate that the cross-section form influences the skid resistance of the pavement most, followed by the aggregate spacing, aggregate distribution dispersity, aggregate peak height, and aggregate RMS gradient. This facilitates the potential directions to improve the skid resistance by optimizing the highly relevant indices in future.