Manual on Pavement Evaluation Techniques

Pavement evaluation techniques which involve the use of state-of-art technologies and tools for functional and structural evaluation of pavements have become necessity today for health monitoring of road infrastructure and to take appropriate decisions for maintenance, planning and budgeting of road network based on scientific tools.

The state-of-art infrastructure facilities available at CSIR-Central Road Research Institute motivates us to write this manual which concisely covers all the major equipment of pavement evaluation, so that the students and field practitioners understand the methodology and follow the correct procedure for functional and structural evaluation of pavement for various purposes.

The first chapter of the manual deals with the evaluation of pavement surface roughness for rating the roads as per riding quality criteria. Apart from the methodology for roughness measurement using various equipment, this chapter will help the readers for deciding the appropriate technology depending upon the location and type of the road under study.

Second chapter of the manual is related to the micro and macro level assessment of pavement surface characteristics which are related to the measurement of pavement surface texture, skid resistance and polish stone value, to ensure the safe riding pavement surface.

Third chapter covers the details about distresses observed on flexible pavements and their measurement techniques. Details of most dominating distresses along with illustrating photographs and severity levels are also given in this chapter. Fourth chapter gives details of axle load surveys using static and weigh-in-motion systems which are required to know the current loading pattern on the project roads for their upgradation and various maintenance needs. Calculation of vehicle damage factor with examples has also been included in this chapter.

The fifth chapter deals with the structural health monitoring of roads using Benkelman Beam and Falling Weight Deflection techniques. The details of these two methods and their measurements techniques are given in details with example for estimating the overlay needs using Falling Weight Deflectometer Technique.
The use of Network Survey vehicle has also become necessity for road asset and pavement condition monitoring for development of pavement maintenance management systems at network level. The details of a typical network survey vehicle system including its calibration and validation details are given in chapter six. This chapter also includes the tentative specifications of Network Survey Vehicle System to meet the requirements of road asset management systems.

We are hopeful that the readers will find the book useful as the procedures of pavement evaluation using equipment have been demonstrated in a simplified way.

Suggestion and observations for further improvement of the manual are welcome.