ABSTRACT
Undetected pavement subsurface cavity can cause pavement’s premature failure leading to road accidents eventually risking consumer safety. Therefore, early detection of this is essential to prevent damage accumulation resulting to pavement failure and collapse. In the past years, the ground penetrating radar (GPR) has been commonly used in finding cavities due to its performance and practicality in detection. However, GPR detection alone may not be sufficient in preventing damages that these cavities may cause. Further assessment of these cavities must be done in order to provide proper rehabilitation method based on the current condition of the pavement structure. In this study, a damage risk assessment method is proposed considering the change in the pavement’s modulus and natural frequency using the rolling dynamic deflectometer (RDD). From the field analysis, it was found that the RDD backcalculated modulus is affected by the occurrence of a cavity. It was also observed that there is a decrease on the natural frequency of a pavement with cavity compared with the intact condition. Because of this, the pavement modulus and natural frequency were used as essential parameters in evaluating the current risk condition of the pavement with subsurface cavity. A damage factor is then proposed considering these parameters quantifying the deviation of the real (with cavity) from the ideal (without cavity) pavement condition. Furthermore, the damage factor also characterizes the pavement condition for proper rehabilitation method recommendation depending on the risk assessment based on its damage factor. Using the proposed approach in evaluating and assessing pavement condition based on subsurface cavity condition, a more concise and comprehensive evaluation of risk due to subsurface cavity is presented.
