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Paving the way for terrestrial laser scanning assessment of road quality

With the growing trend in use of 3D laser scanning technology for data collection, it is important to study the various potential applications of this revolutionary technology. One such application is the measurement of road roughness at both large and small scales. At larger extents, terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) is compared to several current techniques to measure road profiles including digital levels, inclinometers, and inertial profilers. An overall indicator of roughness (e.g. International Roughness Index, IRI) can be obtained from these road profiles and is used by state DOTs to determine the pavement quality. Since TLS is able to collect a large, dense set of data relatively quickly, this technology could provide states with an additional tool to both measure pavement roughness and collect data for the entire roadway.
TLS has the added benefit of being able to generate multiple profiles across the roadway efficiently.
At a fine scale, micron resolution 3D laser scanners can be utilized to determine the influence of asphalt mix designs on the roughness of the pavement. Of particular interest is the selection of predominant aggregate size within the mix.
Results showed that TLS can determine pavement profiles and comparable IRI results to those from current methods. The elevation values collected within the profile were accurate within expected ranges. However, cross correlations, which take into account the location of the roughness, were poor, indicating that TLS is not an effective method to determine a reference profile. TLS was used to determine the cross slopes across the roadway, something that cannot be done with data from an inclinometer or inertial profiler. / Graduation date: 2012 / Zipped file contains 4 file types. Excel files (.xlsx and .xls) can be opened using Microsoft Excel. OBJ files (.obj) are geometry definition file formats intended to be imported into a software program to manipulate 3D laser scans and can also be opened using
Notepad++ or another powerful text editor. Notepad++ is freely available for download on the Web. PVP files (.pvp) are project files that contain project settings and profile data and can be opened with ProVAL, a freely available engineering software application used to view and analyze roadway profiles. ERD files (.ERD) are standard file formats used for storing numbers in tabular form and can be opened with Notepad++ or another powerful text editor. These files contain roadway profiles and are designed to be imported into ProVAL.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:ORGSU/oai:ir.library.oregonstate.edu:1957/30294
Date08 May 2012
CreatorsChin, Abby
ContributorsOlsen, Michael J.
Source SetsOregon State University
Languageen_US
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis/Dissertation

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