Precise Characterization of Macro-texture and Its Correlation with Anti-skidding Performance of Pavement

Abstract In order to precisely characterize the anti-skidding performance with pavement macro-texture, the three-dimensional (3D) coordinate of pavement surface was obtained by using 3D laser scanning before reconstructing a high-precision digital model of pavement. The dynamic friction tester was employed to measure the anti-skidding performance of pavement. Meanwhile, the correlation between macro-texture and anti-skidding performance was investigated by means of the Pearson correlation coefficient method. Firstly, six road sections with different grades and mixture types were selected for testing dynamic friction coefficient and drilling core samples. Secondly, the core samples were scanned by the 3D laser scanning system, and the 3D model of pavement surface was reconstructed. Then, the macro-texture indexes were calculated, and the coefficient of variation method was used to judge the credibility of the test results of different texture indicators. Finally, the correlation between the macro-texture and the anti-skidding performance of pavement was analyzed. Demonstrated by the test results, the skid resistance of ultra-thin wearing course appears to be superior to that of asphalt concrete. Increasing the coarse aggregate content and using high-quality asphalt are effective ways to improve the pavement anti-skidding performance. Macro-texture indexes including arithmetic mean value (Ra), standard deviation (Rq), and range (Rz) show relatively small variation under the same test condition. Having strong correlation with each other, these three indexes belong to the same type. In the meantime, they can also differentiate among different mixture types and service time. Their decent correlation with pavement skid resistance keeps stable with service time, indicating that they can be used to characterize anti-skidding performance of pavement.