Develop Rapid Quality Control and Assurance Technologies for Pavements: Phase I

Attaining uniform construction of the required specification quality serves to maximize pavement life and minimize life-cycle costs. Often, localized defects govern pavement life. This project evaluated technologies for rapidly verifying attainment of specification and material requirements during flexible base construction, during asphalt mixture construction, and during concrete paving. A common theme throughout this project was the use of non-destructive test technologies to expedite test turnaround time, minimize disruption to traffic, and increase testing coverage to reduce contractor and agency risks. For flexible base construction, this project demonstrated proof of concept using ground-penetrating radar (GPR) with mechanics-based models to estimate the in-situ resilient modulus. For asphalt mixture construction, this project demonstrated proof of concept for real-time compaction monitoring from the breakdown roller to estimate density in a quality control setting, and proof of concept using GPR to nondestructively measure the density of the finished compacted asphalt mat area. For concrete mixtures, this project demonstrated proof of concept using a curing Effectiveness Index (EI) concept along with GPR to select proper curing compound application rates and verify optimum curing of concrete in the field. If fully implemented, initial estimates suggest these technologies could save hundreds of millions of dollars over 10 years. However, at this time further work to increase the technology readiness is needed before transitioning these technologies to stakeholders.