Introduction and Application of Rotational Abrasion Device to Determine Concrete Pavement Abrasion

Abrasion susceptibility of highway pavements has a great impact on the skid resistance, and consequently accident rate. A rotational abrasion device is introduced, providing the advantage of field simulation of wheel passage, in comparison with existing standard methods. The device was used to measure abrasion susceptibility of concrete pavements with different textures. The obtained results were evaluated using the standard Wide Wheel Abrasion Test. It is shown that there is a good conformity between abrasion rates acquired from the two tests. The results also show that negative textures, such as grooving, lead to a highly variant unreliable outcome in Wide Wheel Abrasion Test. The brushed samples (perpendicularly or parallelly brushed) underwent the highest abrasion level due to high interaction between texture and wheel (the average final measured abrasion amount is 90% more in brushed samples compared to non-textured samples). Since Rotational Abrasion Test is able to apply extensive loading, its results, as compared to the other test, is not susceptible to random surface protuberances or cavities (burlap dragged and grooved samples).