The Minnesota Department of Transportation built the Minnesota Road Research Project (MnROAD) and its low-volume road (LVR) between 1990 and 1993. The 2.5-mi LVR consists of a two-lane roadway that originally contained gravel, hot-mix asphalt, and concrete test sections designed for low-volume road research. Each of these test sections is trafficked by a controlled five-axle tractor-semitrailer to simulate conditions of rural roads in two load configurations, resulting in the same equivalent axle loads. Over the years, a number of activities and studies have taken place that have used information from MnROAD's LVR. The first 10 years of findings related to the LVR in the areas of facility, hot-mix asphalt, portland cement concrete, aggregate surfacing, seasonal load limits, and non-pavement-related lessons learned are summarized.
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