ABSTRACT
The primary usage of pervious concrete mixtures in pavement construction is to improve the functional performance of pavements through increasing skid resistance and hydroplaning speeds (by dispersing the hydrodynamic pressure developed at the tire-pavement interface) and increasing the water infiltration and tire-pavement contact area at higher speeds, thereby reducing the wet weather accidents. Past skid resistance simulation models for pervious pavements considered the use of artificial pore grid models, but with today’s advanced X-Ray computed tomography (XRCT) technologies, it is now possible to develop realistic pavement models for skid resistance simulation. This paper aims to investigate the effect of thresholding - a crucial step in image segmentation - on skid resistance of pervious concrete pavements, whose pore structures are derived from XRCT. It was found from the analysis presented in this paper that the various thresholding algorithms are found to be either under- or over-estimating the uplift and drag forces, as compared to the discharge-based thresholding algorithm. Errors in skid number due to thresholding are however found to be marginal (with up to 2 SN or 3% error).
