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Photo for visual interest. Test sections of roadway for the Texas Transportation Institute's Ride/Rut Facility. The pavement is marked with white striping.

The Ride/Rut facility consists of test sections for evaluating profilers and for verifying and calibrating the rut bar systems mounted on TxDOT's inertial profiler vans.

Ride/Rut Facility

Smooth roads are associated with lower road user costs, favorable user perceptions of quality and acceptability, longer pavement service lives, and lower life-cycle costs. State departments of transportation (DOTs) around the nation are implementing end-result smoothness specifications for their quality control/quality assurance (QC/QA) programs. Highway contractors and profile service providers are investing in profiling devices for construction quality control to achieve target levels of smoothness on paving projects as well as for acceptance testing of the final surface. In recent years, the profiling market has seen a wider variety of available equipment, from the traditional van-mounted inertial profilers, to lightweight devices that are mounted on tractors or golf carts, portable high-speed profilers that may be mounted on any vehicle, and manually driven walking profilers that provide filtered or unfiltered profiles.

Constructed jointly in 1999 by the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) and the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI), the Ride/Rut Facility was developed to aid in the evaluation, support, and implementation of profiling products, technology, and initiatives. Located near the skid resistance test track at the Riverside Campus Proving Grounds, the facility has about a 2,000-foot long asphalt pavement test track on which unfiltered longitudinal profiles are maintained on two wheelpaths. Over this length, the facility provides two 0.1-mile test sections with sufficient lead-ins and lead-outs for evaluating inertial profilers. Adjacent to the test track are test sections with raised steel beams of different heights for verifying and calibrating the rut bars on inertial profilers owned and operated by TxDOT.

Equipment

Van Inertial Profiler

TxDOT maintains a fleet of laser/rut van-mounted inertial profilers to collect smoothness and rut depth measurements over its highway network to support pavement management activities.

Walking Profiler

Digital surveying equipment and the ARRB walking profiler are used to maintain reference profiles on the ride test track.

Services

Profiler and Operator Certification

TTI administers the inertial profiler operator and equipment certifications for TxDOT in support of the department's implementation of its ride quality specifications (SS 5880 and Item 585). The certifications are conducted by TTI staff at the Texas A&M Riverside Campus according to a set schedule.

Support of Pavement Management Activities

To ensure the quality of smoothness and rut depth data collected over the highway network and reported in pavement management databases, equipment for measuring longitudinal and transverse profiles needs to be regularly tested to establish profiler accuracy and repeatability. Currently, TxDOT uses the Ride/Rut Facility to test and maintain its fleet of profilers that are used in annual pavement condition surveys.

Smoothness Specification Implementation Support

As state DOTs move toward implementing inertial profile-based smoothness specifications, contractors and engineers need a facility to help them test and maintain equipment for verifying compliance with specification requirements. TTI uses the facility to administer TxDOT's inertial profiler certification protocol as specified in TxDOT Test Method Tex-1001S, thereby supporting implementation of TxDOT's new ride specification, which requires certified inertial profilers for quality assurance testing of the final surface smoothness.

Equipment Development and Product Evaluation Support

Innovations in technology have caused the profiling industry to grow dramatically. Old and new vendors alike are developing new products and equipment for the market. Adjacent to the Ride/Rut Facility is a separate overlaid pavement section that is used to support these equipment development efforts by providing a venue where developers may field test prototypes prior to marketing. It also serves end users by allowing them to test profiler capabilities before use on pavement construction or rehabilitation projects.

For More Information

Emmanuel Fernando
CE/TTI Building, Room 508
TTI/Recyclable Materials
Texas A&M University System
3135 TAMU
College Station, TX  77843-3135
ph. (979) 845-3641 · fax (979) 845-0278
e-fernando@tamu.edu
Links

Ride/Rut Facility

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