Incorporating Pavement Skid Resistance and Hydroplaning Risk Considerations in Asphalt Mix Design

Abstract

AbstractAn analytical framework and procedure is proposed in this paper to incorporate pavement skid resistance requirements in asphalt mix design, as part of the overall asphalt pavement design process. The concept is introduced with the aim to overcome the inadequacy of current pavement design procedures, asphalt mix design in particular, in addressing pavement-related highway functional safety requirements. Central to the concept is the use of a theoretically derived finite-element simulation model to generate the skid resistance performance curve (i.e., skid resistance–speed relationship for a given water film thickness) of a pavement surface mix design, based on the input of two skid resistance values measured at different test speeds. Three highway functional safety requirements are addressed, namely the minimum safe terminal skid resistance, the maximum braking distance allowed, and the minimum hydroplaning speed. The proposed framework comprises three main components: (1) a laboratory-accelerated ...