The national institute of standards and technology (nist), the commonwealth of kentucky department of transportation (dot), and surface dynamics, inc., Joined in a project in the commonwealth of kentucky to calibrate five kentucky dot vehicle-mounted mays ride meter (mrm) systems. In this project, a nist-operated inertial profilometersystem was used to measure the elevation profiles of selected pavement test sections. The measured elevation profiles were used to compute the standard mays ride meter index (smrmi) values for each pavement test section. The computed smrmi values were then used as reference values for the calibration of the actual kentucky dot mrm systems. The profilometer was used to identify suitable pavement sections from test sites selected by the kentucky dot using an mrm system. The site selection process included sufficient repeat runs to establish a mean smrmi value for each pavement and a standard deviation fromthat mean for the repeat runs. Six pavement test sites with the desired smrmi values and low standard deviations were selected. The five kentucky dot mrm systems were then driven over the selected test sites a number of times to determine a mean measured value and a standard deviation about that measured mean value for each system on each pavement test site. The test data from the profilometer and the five kentucky dot mrm systems were used to develop a calibration equation and expected standard deviation for each of the mrm systems. Theresulting calibration equations will be used by the kentucky dot tocompute smrmi values for each system. Included in the project was acorrelation of the ohio department of transportation inertial profilometer with the nist-operated inertial profilometer to establish the validity of using another identically constructed inertial profilometer for the same calibration procedure. This paper appears in transportation research record no. 1196, Pavement evaluation and rehabilitation.
Abstract