Author Description

Nondestructive testing has become an integral part for evaluation and rehabilitation strategies of pavements in recent years. Pavement evaluation employing the Falling Weight Deflectometer (FWD) and the Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) can provide valuable information about pavement performance characteristics and be a very useful tool for project prioritization purposes and estimation of construction budget at the network level. FWD deflection testing is an accurate tool for determining pavement structural capacity and estimating the required thickness of overlays and hence is an accurate tool for planning for or estimating required current and future construction budgets. GPR is the only tool that a highway agency may use to develop an inventory of pavement layers thicknesses in the most efficient manner possible. By estimating pavement layer thicknesses and stiffness properties more reliable projections of network rehabilitation strategies and needs can be established, thus resulting in cost effective use of available funds. Traditional obstacles for the use of FWD and GPR in pavement evaluation at the network level used to be expenses involved in data collection, limited resources and lack of simplified analysis procedures. This report presents Indiana experience in pavement evaluation with the FWD and GPR at the network level.