A test road program was officially launched in 1997. Since then, in-depth reviews on planning and operation of test road were carried out for five years. the Korea Expressway Corporation test road constructed in 2002 was considered as the first full s...
A test road program was officially launched in 1997. Since then, in-depth reviews on planning and operation of test road were carried out for five years. the Korea Expressway Corporation test road constructed in 2002 was considered as the first full scale testing facility in Asia, Base on hands-on experience with pavement section design, measurement system design, and sensor installation, a five-year test road research project was conducted from 2003 to 2007. During this period, various types of field tests were performed to characterize the structural response of highway pavement, and to carry out a preliminary study for the prediction of long-term performance of pavements. The contents of this study are closely connected to a Ministry of Construction and Transportation (MOCT) project entitled "Development of Korean Pavement Design Guide and Study of Pavement Performance Improvement Method." Incorporated in the design guide, response models and performance prediction models are going to be developed based on test road data. Among over 1900 sensors and probes installed at various test road sections, about 95% of them were still found working properly after one year of service. As of now, the survivability rate is maintaining about 70%. There are two measuring systems at the test road: automatic and manual. The automatic measurement system includes pavement and air temperatures and water content in unbound layers. the manual measurement system is developed for pavement structural reponses due to traffic load and climatic changes. The high speed weigh-In-motion (WIM) system measures traffic information passing the test road and a weather station mounted at the roof of office building collects real-time weather information. The rest road was officially opened to traffic in March 2004 immediately after the second initial measurements. The two series of periodic field tests were performed from August 2004. The fist series of field test took 4 weeks and was carried out 12 different tests including a roll-over test, Falling Weight Deflectometer (FWD) test, and field condition survey, etc. as the second set of test, 8 tests were performed for 4 weeks. As in 2005, two sets of in-situ measurements have been preformed to account for the seasonal effects on pavement performance: one from April to May; and the other from July to August. Of 5 test items, the moving load considered as a key test for asphalt pavements has been applied to 10 asphalt sections, as static load tests are carried out for the evaluation of load transfer capacity in concrete pavements. In order for test road to be an effective means for pavement researches, three research topics are selected for different pavement types: 1) cracking behavior in continuously reinforced concrete pavement, 2) development of joint behavior model at joint reinforced concrete pavement, and 3) analysis on top-down cracking and viscoelastic behavior of asphalt concrete pavements. The objectives of test road operation in 2006 are basically twofold: 1) organizing the test road database for the purpose of a public dissemination scheduled at the end of 2007; and 2) rehabilitating and replacing a current WIM system, which currently shows lots of instabilities in data collection and transfer procedures. In addition, the freezing index at the test road was calculated to investigate actual freezing depth and to verify the effectiveness of anti-freezing layer. Test road research in 2007 primarily consists of long-term evaluation of pavement performance, pavement maintenance, and traffic control. An new research will be started from 2008 to continuously perform pavement researches at test road.