Abstract
The deflection beam is a simple instrument for the measurement of the transient deflection of road surfaces under a dual wheel load. The paper gives results of deflection measurements on roads in East and Central Africa and discusses the application of such measurements in the estimation of the strength and future performance of roads. Even on roads of nominally uniform construction the deflection measurements showed considerable variation. Quality control methods od analysis were therefore used to determine the significance of the variations and to formulate a procedure for road surveys with the deflection beam. Further work is required to obtain deformation/performance histories of typical roads in Africa.