Analysis of test methods for texture depth evaluation applied in Portugal

摘要

Texture is a surface characteristic which has a very wide influence onpavements functional quality. It is currently assessed by a number of test methods. RoadAdministrations face the problems of dealing with data acquired by different methods and, inaddition to that, the repeatability and reproducibility of the results. This paper presents ananalysis of test methods used for texture depth evaluation in Portugal: the volumetric patchmethod and two methods based on surface profiles. Hence, three roads with low (denseasphalt), medium (“open texture asphalt”) and high (porous asphalt) texture depths wereselected, where five profilometers made five runs. Two subsections of 150 m length were alsoselected to carry out the volumetric patch test. The texture indicators analysed were: the meantexture depth, the mean profile depth and the sensor measured texture depth. The average andthe standard deviation were the statistical parameters used for the analysis. The resultsobtained for each method are significantly different and a good correlation between the meanprofile depth and the sensor measured texture depth was established.