Simulative Polishing In The Laboratory; Comparison With Traffic And Use To Investigate Aggregate Blending

Abstract

Two experiments with the Wehner-Schulze machine, which is designed to apply a controlled amount of polishing to and measure the friction of road surfacing products, are described and their results summarised. In the first experiment the polishing action of the machine is compared to the polishing action of traffic using UK roads. It is shown that there is a strong correlation between friction measured after polishing by traffic in a non-event location and friction measured after polishing in the machine. It is shown that polishing in the machine is more severe than that applied by free-rolling traffic on straight roads. In the second experiment, the machine is used to show that it may be possible to predict the long-term friction performance of asphalt prepared with a blend of coarse aggregates using a mass ratio formula.