Comparison of the Pavement Layers Thickness Measured by Georadar and Conventional Methods – Examples From Croatia

Abstract

Thickness of the pavement structure layers represents an important data for the implementation into the database of roads already constructed, during the pavement strengthening design, particularly if the appraisal of the bearing capacity of the pavement structure is done by means of the Falling Weight Deflectometer, during reconstruction of pavements or during control of the newly constructed roads. If reconstruction is carried out by procedures of recycling of the existing pavement the details about the thickness of asphalt layers are important not only when determining the depth of the intervention but also when designing asphalt mixture. During quality control of the newly constructed road sections the Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR, georadar) can be used as the instrument for fast and efficient determination of the thickness of layers. Measuring is done at speeds that approx correspond to the speeds of traffic flow, so that disturbance of traffic is minimum, whereby the safety of participants in traffic and measuring personnel is increased. The paper presents several examples of determining the thickness of layers of road pavement structures by the non-destructive GPR method. The obtained results were compared to conventional methods of determining thicknesses that are used in Croatia, i.e. coring or data obtained by surveying methods during construction of the pavement structural layers. Measurements were done on completely new and existing roads of different age having the asphalt pavement.