An Area-Based Faulting Measurement Method Using Three-Dimensional Pavement Data

Abstract

Faulting is one of the three performance measures recognized by the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) for jointed concrete pavements. U.S. Federal Highway Administration rules developed for the CFR require the state Departments of Transportation to use the AASHTO Standard R 36, Standard Method for Evaluating Faulting of Concrete Pavements, for measurement of faulting. R 36 allows both manual testing using a faultmeter and automatic testing using a high-speed inertial profiler (HSIP). There is a concern in the literature that the HSIP methods are not accurate enough for network level testing of faulting. Recent studies have also shown that three-dimensional (3-D) laser technology is showing promise for providing more accurate faulting measurements. Still, there currently is not a specific method in R 36 that utilizes 3-D data for gathering faulting measurements. This paper proposes a new method that takes full advantage of the full-coverage capabilities of 3-D to measure faulting more accurately and consistently. This method uses the comparison of smoothed areas on both sides of a joint instead of a single longitudinal profile to measure elevation differences. Field tests were performed to compare the 3-D method with manual readings taken with a Georgia faultmeter on two sections of interstate in Georgia. In addition, the impact of various footprints and measuring locations of faulting measurements using this 3-D technology were quantitatively evaluated using the proposed method. Based on this case study the new proposed 3-D method appears to be appropriate to be considered to be added as a 3-D automatic method in AASHTO R 36.