Premature pavement deteriorations have severely reduced the life expectancy of asphalt pavements, which mainly result from pavement non-uniformity. Typical coring method to assess the non-uniformity of pavement sample has found to be limited by certain conditions, such as destructive and unreliable sample size. In this study, a new evaluation method was introduced by combining the field assessment on asphalt surface layer test section and the fatigue durability assessment on asphalt mixtures in the laboratory. The Stone Mastic Asphalt (SMA-13) samples were adopted in this study. The test protocol involved: indoor and outdoor calibration method of Pavement Quality Indicator (PQI-301) non-nuclear density meter; calibration and applicability evaluation; and combination of road surface separation detection method with the image processing technology (IPT). Based on that, the non-uniformity evaluation index has been proposed. Moreover, the indirect tensile and uniaxial tensile fatigue tests were carried out to study the influence regularity of non-uniformity volume parameters (air voids, voids in mineral aggregate, voids filled with asphalt), then asphalt pavement fatigue life prediction model has been established. This result reveals that non-destructive test method, such as UAV(Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) rapid detection, can be applied to detect the non-uniformity of asphalt pavement with a better precision, economical, and reliable data in the future. According to the fatigue life prediction model, the non-uniformity of asphalt pavement could be indirectly evaluated, and the feasibility of PQI-301 non-nuclear density meter as well as the IPT to evaluate the non-uniformity of asphalt pavement was verified.

CICTP