SMARTROAD
Brief Description:
The Virginia SMARTROAD is a 5.7-mile, limited-access highway of which the first 2 miles is designated as a controlled pavement test facility. The road has two lanes in each direction, and a 3.0m shoulder on each side. Provisions exist to route traffic around controlled test zones to allow for ongoing testing. The pavement research plan provides for testing of various hypotheses on pavement material performance and characteristics, all pavement layers are instrumented for monitoring loading and the environment. The simulation of different types of weather conditions is possible. An underground conduit network provides on-site data acquisition The pavement test road includes 12 flexible pavement test sections and a continuously reinforced rigid pavement. The sensor array includes strain gages, pressure cells, thermocouples, time-domain reflectometry (TDR) probes, and resistivity probes. Some unique measurements in this facility include measuring strain in the aggregate layer, pressure underneath the hot-mix asphalt (HMA) layer and direct measurements of moisture.
Links to Facility's: Website Publications page