Feasibility of Using British Pendulum Tester to Evaluate Laboratory Sized Diamond Ground Surfaces

Skid resistance and surface friction of pavements is an essential consideration in pavement performance and traffic safety. The British pendulum tester (BPT) is widely used to measure the skid resistance of pavements worldwide both in the field and laboratory. Diamond grinding and grooving is a commonly used surface rehabilitation technique for concrete pavements to improve their surface friction. At the laboratory scale, polishing of concrete pavement surfaces by diamond grinding and grooving using the three-wheel polishing device creates a smaller available test area compared to the test area required by the standard test method for the British pendulum test. This study presents a modified test method for the use of BPT on diamond ground surfaces with small test areas. To evaluate the feasibility of this method, the effect of different levels of polishing on the BPT measurements were analyzed. Results suggest that the BPT using the modified method described in this study is not a reasonable tool to evaluate the skid resistance of diamond ground surfaces at the laboratory scale.