Measuring Distresses in Highway Pavements

Sometime visual man hours is the best.

Did you Google today?

• Automated management for pavement inspection system .....
• Automated pavement distress inspection based on 2D and ....
• Automated Management of Pavement Inspection System ....
• Pavement Technical Solutions, Inc. (PTS) Full Service ....
• [PDF]Real-time 3D Scanning System for Pavement Distortion ...

One could probably use a drone, but I guess it depends on your budget...

http://www.draganfly.com/uav-helicopter/draganflyer-x8/applications/industrial.php

Personally if I had any control the people who run the highway departments and the officials they answer to above themselves would be given vehicles that have had their suspension systems braced and welded solid then required to go out and do no less than a 10 hour drive around at posted speed limits once a month on the streets and highways they are in charge of.

Bet we would have highways that met or exceed typical Autobahn standards within a year. (Or a lot of bloody urine related medical issues showing up with said people.)

Sounds similar to the philosophy I had while living in Las Vegas.

1. Make those in charge of the roadways drive around until: A. They became a statistic and were no longer part of the problem. Or B. They decided to do something about the roads, so they weren't a statistic and were part of the solution.

2. Mount automatic cheese dispensers in all the "looky loo" cars, until they were as bound up as the freeways, and decided that slowing down to look at the accidents didn't help $hit.

The ones in charged of roadways?

But the roads from their house to work are paved, and in excellent condition. 50 years ago in our rural community. The roads were also paved from their house to the taverns, while the rest were graveled.

I'm sure that was just a coincidence.

Yeah, and left up to you we'd still be burning old tires, used motor oil and peat and dung.

The people who run the highway departments and the officials they answer to can only use the money that has yet to be stolen by Congress and given to the highest bidder contributor for their enrichment.

Given their budgets, I think they do OK.

Hey now I never once claimed to burn peat or dung those are organic renewable fuels and you know full well burning those does not fit my agenda for a warmer world.

Hey Mr. nice guy, you forgot to fill the tire with concrete.

One solution might be to require anyone who digs into a paved public surface to be forced to maintain it for a period of ten years.

Clever man! I sense a slight contempt for inept government agencies? Me too, BTW. Just not so much contempt on the competent ones (when and if one is found)- maybe the Military, maybe FBI ( I certainly admire the training they go through, their morality objectives (no one is perfect), and their crime laboratories abilities to find significant minutia and gain insight into crime.

"Distresses" would be a job for a psychiatrist.

There are three ways to measure Rough Index RI. California Profiler, Lightweight profiler, and High speed profiler. California is the oldest it's a device that is push be two inspectors and the depression and gaps in the pavement are recorded on paper. Light weight was developed in 1998 it's basicly a modified gift cart with four Lazer pointed at the pavement. It is driven around 15-20 mph the Lazers are hooked up to a computer that records every bump in the road up to 1/1000th of an inch compared to the California's 1/10th. The last is a high speed profiler this is usually a van that has up to 12 lasers and multiple cameras. With a high speed profiler it can be done at any speed in traffic, no traffic control needed, the lasers are good for recording 1/1000th inch, plus the record of location with cameras and gps.

Pennsylvania is a good starting point since they have used all three and there should be documents supporting them.

Looks like the changed it to IRI international roughness index. The are several webs explaining it in greater detail.

Hi There,

try the CSIRO in Australia, as they have built such a vehicle some years ago (i work for CSIRO but in the astronomy area) it travelled at highway speed, i think it x-rays measures and counts cracks etc.

good luck

Then you need to make enquires of railway maintenance operators. It is already done at speeds up to 125mph in the UK.

Mon ami, how it it that you, one who resides in Paris, know so much about the UK?

Just kidding Crabtree!

Have you done the calculations? Try this: a continuous laser comb, with an imaging linear diode array to pick up the specular reflections bouncing back from the pavement. This system should be of high speed, high light intensity (laser) helps with that, by enabling the system to operate with a high bandwidth, more details can be picked up. All you have to do is feed the translational speed into the computer along with the array sensor data, and you could then look at the temporal data as a high speed image of the road surface. Alternatively, one could take the FFT of the data and view the frequency domain of the road surface, and this may be quite revealing.

See lightweight profiler or high speed profiler you described exactly what they use.

Hunter, a wheel alignment and tire balance manufacturer, has now available a drive over machine that will measure the wear of the tires on each wheel as well as give a readout of wheel alignment. So, the technology must be available.

All I know is that replacing the old worn out front tires with the rear tires, then putting new ones on the back is less expensive than a full set, and the thing drives down the road a lot better after having this done.

Aust to expensive and plausibly dangerous! Radio accidents verse Video recorder accidents. Depth lasers are used already, like the same as purchasable at a hardware store. The highways reak at the same place all the time, it's proven by years of driving them, the bumps always appear at the same place. Ask an old driver!! Satelitte or earth radar would help you develop a system. Side blow ground radar? Ground rubber rollers on a hydrostatic push/pull rod.