Research Pays Off August 2020

"Use of Road Doctor for Evaluation of Pavements Affected by Severe Crack-heaving (tenting)" by Eyoab Zegeye Teshal, Ph.D., P.E. of MnDOT

Pavement crack-heaving, also referred to as tenting, is a distress condition that primarily affects bituminous roads constructed in cold climates. This type of distress can stretch over long segments of roadways, and drastically impact the comfort and safety of drivers. Due to the complexities of the phenomenon and lack of established rapid testing tools, tenting issues are not yet well-understood and well-addressed. To help address the lack of adequate and rapid measuring tools for tenting, MnDOT experimented with its integrated and multi-sensor survey van (Road Doctor) and conducted extensive testing on District 1 highway roads suspected of tenting. The survey van was equipped with multiple linked and synchronized devices, including high-definition video and thermal cameras, LIDAR laser scanner, high-resolution accelerometer, and ground-penetrating radar (GPR) antennas. The data revealed important surface and subsurface pavement tenting characteristics and led to the development of test parameters that captured reasonably well the intensity and frequency of the tented cracks. This presentation will discuss the findings and the lesson learned.