Citation

Stephenson WR, Billing JR. Proc. Int. Tech. Conf. Enhanced Safety Vehicles 1992; 1992: 171-175.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1992, In public domain, Publisher National Highway Traffic Safety Administration)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This paper describes a process which has been developed for both identifying and classifying transverse cracks in pavements according to severity. The location of the crack can be logged within one metre in 5 km of roadway. The apparatus is mounted on a tractor-semi trailer combination. The truck was loaded to reproduce the standard equivalent single axle load. Details of the location, design, and calibration of the measuring apparatus is provided. Piezoresistive accelerometers monitored vertical accelerations of both left and right hand wheel paths. Strain gauge load sensing pads were used to produce vertical wheel load data from the axle shear strain. A magnetic pickup was mounted on the especially adapted right wheel drum to provide vehicle speed and distance travelled. A retro-reflective photo sensor was used to record event marks already placed on the pavement. Details of the data processing methods used are also provided and include a BASIC program which can download the data into an ASCII file which can then be imported into a PC spreadsheet for further analysis. This program provides a summary listing of all cracks found during the run, and bar graph charts showing the number and severity of the cracks, and the crack density, in arbitrarily selected increments of distance.