Comparative Evaluation of Falling Weight Deflectometer, Traffic Speed Deflectometer and Rapid Pavement Tester in Deflection Measurement

Abstract

This study intends to compare deflections obtained from traffic speed deflection devices (TSDDs) with the deflections of the falling weight deflectometer (FWD). For this purpose, deflections were measured on five sections of three roads in the Norwegian road network using traffic speed deflectometer (TSD) and rapid pavement tester (Raptor). Deflections were also measured using FWD at three different temperatures and the curves of FWD deflections versus temperature (FWD temperature-dependent deflection curves) were obtained. These curves were used to correct the effect of temperature difference. It was shown that both TSD and Raptor have the potential to detect structural deficiencies; however, TSD had better consistency with FWD with regard to deflection values and deflection basin parameters. A refinement was then made to make the Raptor data more consistent with FWD data. Calculating bearing capacity before and after refinement revealed that refining Raptor data can substantially increase the consistency between Raptor and FWD.