Pavement thickness, surface evenness and construction practice

The structural performance and the riding quality of a road are strongly influenced by the accurate and uniform laying of the pavement materials to the appropriate design thickness. The effectiveness of level control procedures used in road construction to achieve the required thicknesses and surface regularity is investigated. Surface profile and of thickness of pavement were measured during construction on 38 randomly selected 100-meter lengths from two flexible and three rigid roads. Measurements analysis showed that the mean layer thicknesses were generally at or near the required thickness but that layer thickness varied considerably along the test lengths, particularly for the concrete pavements. On flexible roads, the results showed that the profiles of the lower layers influenced the evenness of the finished surface. On rigid construction the evenness of the finished surfaces was independent of the profile of the subbase.