World Road Association

working group 4.2.1

International Seminar, Quito,

November 2014

Michael Moffatt
(working Group Leader)

Outline

Condition monitoring
Service life of pavements
3D laser sensors
Deflection at traffic speed
Data visualisation

Road condition monitoring

Report
State of the art in
road condition monitoring &
road/vehicle interaction
Publication:
Languages:

late 2015
English, French, Spanish

Contents

Longitudinal evenness
Surface texture
Friction/Skid resistance
Traffic noise
Structural condition
Rolling resistance
Transverse profile
Distresses
Quality management
Case studies

Service life of wearing

surfaces

Report
Estimating the remaining service
life of wearing surfaces
Publication:
Languages:

late 2015
English, French, Spanish

Contents
Questionnaire responses
Discussion of responses
Case studies
thresholds for measured properties
multi-criteria visual inspection approaches

Use of 3D lasers for road

condition monitoring

Benoit Petitclerc, Quebec, Canada

Technology
Quebecs Road Inspection Vehicle (VMEC)
3D Laser system - LCMS
Profiler (Dynatest MARK-V)
Video Logging (front and rear view)
GPS + Inertial compensation

LCMS system (Pavemetrics / INO)

2 laser sensors with accelerometers
and gyroscopes
2 x 2 meters transverse profile
4000 pixels / profile
0.5 mm resolution in elevation
5600 profiles/sec. (1 to 5 mm)

LCMS Raw Data

Data volume

Processing rate

700 - 800 MB / km
5 8 km/h !!!!*
(raw data)
1 file every 10
18 000 km / year = 150 days
meters

How to process all the data in a reasonable time ??

*Based on one CPU Intel Core i7- 2,9 GHz 2048 RAM
*Processing library version 3.4.n

Processing infrastructure (IT)

LCMS data output example

Cracks localization, severity and pattern

LCMS Data Output

Presently operational and validated
Cracks (Localization, severity and pattern)
Ruts (shape and depth)
2013 issue: presence of large cracks in the wheel path =>overestimate ruts
Proposed solution needs to be validated

To be validated => Spring 2014

Macro texture
Longitudinal profile
Class1 - ASTM-E950

In development
Geometry (Curve, slope, cross slope)
Sealed cracks and patch detection
Cracks detection on textured concrete pavement

Calibration and maintenance

Sensor calibration and internal inspection
Done by: Pavemetrics / INO
When: Once a year or after 15 000 km of road
inspection

Daily lens cleaning

Annual and periodical validation

Periodical =>Reference surface
Annual => Artificial cracks site
Length of 700 meters
Detection / Bias / Repeatability /
Localization
Cracks types

Annual and periodical validation

Results on the artificial cracks site

Things to be aware
Limits of the system
Wet pavement (water, ice)
Laser line is scattered
Bad Signal/ Noise ratio
Impossible to collect good quality data

Outdoor temperature bellow 0 Celsius*

Under estimate cracks
Small opening cracks are missing from detection

Under estimate macro texture

*10 Celsius inside the sensor

Deflection measurement at
traffic speed

Pavement strength testing

Traditional methods such as FWD still in wide use
Relatively slow technology
Not safe for network testing; requires significant
traffic control

Technologies
Two (non-contact) laser based technologies have
emerged :
Normal lasers directly measuring displacement by
subtraction
Doppler lasers measuring vertical velocity, of road
surface,
and inferring displacement
Looking at these in turn ...

26

High Speed Deflection (normal

lasers)

Standard load still required, and lasers measure vertical

distance before and after loading :

Mid-span lasers fire to measure unloaded

pavement

27

High Speed Deflection (normal lasers)

Standard load still required, and lasers measure vertical

distance before and after loading :

Mid-span lasers fire to measure unloaded

pavement

Wheel lasers fire as passes over exactly the

same spots
28

High Speed Deflection (normal

lasers)

Number of devices developed on this principle, of which just

one, the RWD (USA) is effectively active. (the Swedish RDT has
now ceased).

Rolling Wheel Deflectometer (RWD),

USA

Road Deflection Tester (RDT),

Sweden

The challenges have been :

Accuracy of location and time, for unloaded and loaded
points
Interference of surface macro-texture (such as spray
seals).
29

Standard load still required, and lasers continuously measure

vertical speed at which pavement surface is moving under
load :

Wheel lasers fire continuously over the loaded

pavement

Wheel lasers fire continuously over the loaded

pavement
30

Standard load still required, and lasers continuously measure

vertical speed at which pavement surface is moving under
load :

Wheel lasers fire continuously over the loaded

pavement

Wheel lasers fire continuously over the loaded

pavement, all the time
31

Precise location register challenge solved,

because the system only needs to measure a
point once, as it moves vertically when loaded.

Texture challenge solved, because the surface

(texture & all) in immediate vicinity of the laser
point are all connected and moving at same
vertical speed.

33

Danish TSD in Australia

Integration of velcoity data

Relationship between pavement deflection (dx) at any

wheel offset (x) and the cumulative area of the plot of slope
(Vv/Vh), versus wheel load offset (x)

TSD analysis

ARRB Group TSD

Manufactured by Greenwood Engineering
(Denmark)
8th in the world 1st into Australasia
Arrived into Australia January 2014
5 year contracts with 3 member
organisations:
Queensland Transport and Main Roads (TMR)
Roads and Maritime Services, New South Wales (RMS)
New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA)

Commenced collection in Queensland in

April 2014

ARRB TSD

Specs
7 Doppler Lasers:

100mm
200mm
300mm
450mm
600mm
900mm
3500mm (reference laser)

Operates at 80km/hr
Trailer is 11250mm long

40

Specifications
Operates with a
consistent 10 tonne
load
Single axle primemover (Mercedes
Actros)
2 ballast loads
Large (pictured)
Small (behind the rear
axle)

2 ARRB Staff operating

at all times
1 driver
1 operator
41

Extra sensors
Running a complete
Hawkeye System
5 cameras (3
forward, 2 rear)
5 laser profiler
(texture, roughness)
Automatic Crack
Detection (ACD)
also used for rutting
Gipsi-trac (crossslope, gradient)

More than just deflection

Roughne
ss
Rutting
Texture
Cracking
Imaging

Big burger approach

Cost benefits to
road agencies
Reduction in
number of
surveys
Safer data
collection
methods
More data

Contracted survey distances

Established three base surveys - each for five years
Additional surveys can be conducted with approval of
three foundation members
Survey distances (in units of 10,000 km) are:
Who

Year 1

Year 2

Year 3

Year 4

Year5

Queensland

20

20

20

20

20

NSW

21

10

21

10

21

New Zealand

12

Total

53

36

47

36

47

Capital funding obtained on basis of above contracts

45

Data visualisation

TSD + NM-GPR: Recent examples

Source: Google Earth, map title, scale image: Landsat, Sinclair Knight Merz & Fugro,
DigitalGlobe, Google. Google Earth is a trademark of Google Inc., USA.
50

Copyright ARRB 2014

Summary

Condition monitoring
Service life of pavements
3D laser sensors
Deflection at traffic speed
Data visualisation

Thank you