Title: Indicators of longitudinal unevenness of roads in the USA

Authors: Oldrich Kropac, Peter Mucka

Addresses: Kankovskeho 1241/2, 182 00 Prague 8, Czech Republic. ' Institute of Materials and Machine Mechanics, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Racianska 75, 831 02 Bratislava 3, Slovak Republic

Abstract: About 25,800 longitudinal profiles of in-service roads in the USA (Long-Term Pavement Performance (LTPP) Program) were evaluated to obtain indicators of the longitudinal unevenness (roughness) of the road surface defined by standards ISO 8608 : 1995 and EN 13036-5 : 2006. Besides the commonly used International Roughness Index (IRI), also parameters of the Power Spectral Density (PSD) were evaluated taking into account not only the whole interval of effectively acting wavelengths, but also its two and three partial sub-bands. Differences between left and right tracks and between Asphalt Concrete (AC) and Portland Cement Concrete (CC) wearing courses were considered. For all the mentioned indicators (21), their Probability Density Functions (PDF) and numerical statistics were estimated.

Keywords: road profile; road unevenness; road surfaces; surface roughness; probability density function; PDF; power spectral density; PSD; unevenness index; waviness; International Roughness Index; IRI; three-bands indicators; TBI; LTPP program; pavement performance; concrete wear; in-service roads; USA; United States.

DOI: 10.1504/IJVD.2008.020306

International Journal of Vehicle Design, 2008 Vol.46 No.4, pp.393 - 415

Published online: 15 Sep 2008 *

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