Study on Asphalt Pavement Surface Texture Degradation Using 3-D Image Processing Techniques and Entropy Theory

Abstract

Surface texture is a very important factor affecting the anti-skid performance ofpavements. In this paper, entropy theory is introduced to study the decay behavior of thethree-dimensional macrotexture and microtexture of road surfaces in service based on the field testdata collected over more than 2 years. Entropy is found to be feasible for evaluating thethree-dimensional macrotexture and microtexture of an asphalt pavement surface. The complexityof the texture increases with the increase of entropy. Under the polishing action of the vehicle load,the entropy of the surface texture decreases gradually. The three-dimensional macrotexture decaycharacteristics of asphalt pavement surfaces are significantly different for different mixturedesigns. The macrotexture decay performance of asphalt pavement can be improved by designingappropriate mixtures. Compared with the traditional macrotexture parameter Mean Texture Depth(MTD) index, entropy contains more physical information and has a better correlation with thepavement anti-skid performance index. It has significant advantages in describing the relationshipbetween macrotexture characteristics and the anti-skid performance of asphalt pavement.