Sampling strategy for pavement distress survey: a case study

Abstract

Before taking up a detailed structural evaluation of pavements, a reconnaissance survey of the pavement surface distresses is usually employed. For an entire road network such a survey involves considerable cost and time. This paper attempts to focus on the sampling strategy for distress survey where the survey can be conducted for the partial length of a given road. The fatigue cracking on an asphalt pavement was chosen as surface distress for the present case study. A videographic survey was conducted on some local in-service asphalt pavement sections. From the analysis of data collected in the present study, it was observed that the distribution of fatigue cracking with a mean value less than approximately 20% followed an exponential distribution. It was also seen that the sample mean distress level was within ±10% of the population mean, if only 20% of road length was surveyed.