Modeling of the Road Surface Polishing Based on Contact-mechanics Approach

In this paper, a new contact-mechanic-based model for road polishing is presented. According to this model, the local polishing rate is controlled by the pressure distribution between the car tire and the road surface. The Boussinesq load-displacement relation is used to calculate this pressure distribution taking into account the surface roughness, the applied load, the mechanical and geometrical properties of the bodies in contact. Coupling the pressure distribution with a wear law, the local evolution of the pavement roughness can be evaluated. The proposed wear law is based on the Preston equation and is proportional to the contact pressure, the relative velocity and the Micro-Deval coefficient of the aggregates used in the mix-designing. To validate this model, polishing tests are performed on road specimens, using the so-called machine Wehner-Schulze. Results show that the predicted road profile evolution is consistent with that given by experiments.