Investigation of Pavement Management Practices and Pavement Material Performance in Alberta, Canada

• Author / Creator

  Newstead, Brett

• Roadways are one of the most important pieces of public infrastructure in any municipality, province, or country. Roads connect economic corridors encouraging trade, provide citizens with the option to travel, and remain a necessity for all people to access work and the majority of the main services that impact their lives. Roadways are such an important piece of infrastructure, yet very little attention is paid to by the general public on how well roads last, until usability issues are glaringly clear.
  Roads in Alberta are cared for by government agencies. Those agencies have varying issues depending on where they are situated in the province, making planning for on-time restoration and rehabilitation much more important since budgets are only becoming tighter at the same time that resident expectations with roadway networks are growing. Additionally, road networks are only getting larger, meaning identifying areas of concern require standardized metrics and regular reporting. Understanding these location and budget limitations is critical in determining where gaps may exist in the province with respect to pavement management and treatment. To determine these gaps, a survey questionnaire was sent out to the Alberta Pavement Managers User Group (APMUG) in Alberta; the APMUG is a group that meets annually to discuss issues and areas of focus to help agencies better understand how to approach the improvement process of their roadways. The survey showed that few agencies were engaging in preservation activities like microsurfacing, as well as recycling methods such as cold in place and full depth recycling; furthermore, the survey identified that most agencies were working on this asset with less than five professionals making up the staff, resulting in the need for outside consultants to occur more frequently.
  Most agencies identified the lack of information as an obvious influence on the effectiveness of treatments in Alberta. For agencies to promote and use new technologies, they need to see results. However, determining these results requires lab testing as well as field testing. This requires time, resources and opportunity. To ascertain these answers, regarding lab and field testing, the City of St. Albert constructed a 1.5 km test section using Stone Mastic Asphalt (SMA), High Traffic Asphalt (HT), and Type III Microsurfacing. Prior to construction, the test section was evaluated for condition and noise levels, and then immediately following construction, those same tests were performed again. Samples of each material were then sent to the University of Alberta lab for testing to attempt to determine the long-term performance potential of each material. The construction times and costs were also tracked and measured closely to determine the cost effectiveness of each treatment.
  The results showed that the SMA had the greatest resistance to stripping and deformation and had the highest initial construction cost; but yielded the greatest improvement to life expectancy of all pavements tested. Microsurfacing was most cost effective with respect to construction costs had and the greatest immediate improvement to grip on the pavements, but it is projected to have the least resistance to deformation and stripping in the long term. HT was found to have the best middle ground performance, or long-term resistance to rutting, while offering the best results for noise attenuation.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Pavement Grip
  • Microsurfacing
  • SMA
  • Pavements
  • Roads
  • Pavement Testing
  • Pavement Noise
  • Bitumen
  • Pavement Management

• Graduation date

  Fall 2018

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Master of Science

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R36M33K5B

• License

  Permission is hereby granted to the University of Alberta Libraries to reproduce single copies of this thesis and to lend or sell such copies for private, scholarly or scientific research purposes only. Where the thesis is converted to, or otherwise made available in digital form, the University of Alberta will advise potential users of the thesis of these terms. The author reserves all other publication and other rights in association with the copyright in the thesis and, except as herein before provided, neither the thesis nor any substantial portion thereof may be printed or otherwise reproduced in any material form whatsoever without the author's prior written permission.