Title

Texture depth and skid resistance of a road surface

Introduction

Skidding between tyres and road surface occurs in many road accidents. Highway engineers
have researched ways to improve the skid resistance of road surfaces. One of equipment is
the Pendulum Skid Tester. This device simulates the skid resistance of a road surface to a
motorcar travelling at 50 km/h. It gives a number, being a percentage, somewhat similar to a
coefficient of fiction.

It was found that skid resistance falls rapidly after 3 roads is opened to traffic but the rate of
deterioration slows down, eventually setting to a constant value. This latter value is
dependent on the surface texture, rock type and traffic volume.

Objective

The objective of this experiment is to measure the road surface texture depth and skid
resistance

Apparatus

a) Pendulum skid resister

b) Ruler
c) Brush

Material

a) Tap water
 Figure 1 : Pendulum Skid Resistance Tester

Procedure
1) The spot is selected and next to or at the texture depth that has been measured which
is at the UiTM Penang parking road
2) The apparatus is installed on the smooth pavement so that the slider will swing in the
direction of traffic flow and level the base screws.
3) The swinging arm is raised with clear of the pavement and clamped in the horizontal
position. The arm is released and that the pointer reads zero is checked.
4) With the pendulum arm free and hanging vertically, the spacer is placed. Then,
attached to a chain on the base of the column and under the lifting handle setting
screw to raise the slider. Lower the head of the tester so that the slider just touches the
road surface and clamped in that position. The spacer is removed.
5) The sliding length of the rubber over the pavement was checked by gently lowering
the pendulum arm until the slider just touches the surface first on one side of the
vertical and then on the other. When passing this arm through the vertical, the lifting
handle is used because that slider does not touch the pavement. The sliding length is
13.7 cm. If not can adjust by raising or lowering the head.
6) The pendulum arm is placed in the horizontal and clamped in position. Bring the
pointer to its stop then the pendulum is released by pressing the button. Take care to
catch the arm on its return swing before it hits the ground.
 7) The arm and pointer is returned to the release position keeping the slider off the
pavement surface by means of the lifting handle. The mean of the three successive
reading are recorded and that reading do not has more differ.
8) If the range is greater than from that each value, repeat swings until three successive
reading are constant and the vale is recorded.
9) The procedure from 3 until 8 is repeated when the road surface are wetted with water
10) Then, all the procedure also repeated for the medium and rough pavement.

Results

Point Skid resistance Category

Dry pavement Wet pavement

(mm) (mm)

55 54

1 55 53 B

56 54

Average skid resistance (mm) 55.333 53.667

60 59

2 59 55 B

59 59

Average skid resistance (mm) 59.333 57.667

69 65

3 70 66 A

70 65

Average skid resistance (mm) 69.667 65.333

Example calculation:

Dry pavement for point 1

55 +55 +56
Average skid resistance =
3

= 55.333 mm

Wet pavement for point 1

54 +53 +54
Average skid resistance =
3

= 53.667 mm

Discussion

This experiment can be used to measure the texture or the skid resistance (friction
characteristics) using the equipment in figure 1 for the road surface including walkways.
Then, once the test is completed and the data is tabulated with sample calculation. From the
table above, it can be seen that the average skid resistance values (in mm) for dry pavement
are55.333, 59.333 and 69.667, also for the wet pavement are 53.667, 57.667 and 65.333.The
highest valueis at Point 3for both pavement condition, which is 69.667 and 65.333
respectively.By referring an Appendix: Suggested minimum values of skid resistance
(measured with the portable tester) (TRRL, 1969), most of the road points can categories
as categoryB, which is suitable for a motorways, trunk and class 1 road. Furthermore, this test
procedure is standardized based on ASTM E303 test method.

Besides, the skid resistance value is depend on many factors, and of that is a pavement
surface which are related to the two types of texture. For micro-texture, it refers to the fine-
scale texture (below about 0.5 mm) on the surface of the course aggregate. Then, macro-
texture are refers to the large-scale texture of pavement as a whole due to the arrangement of
aggregate particles, which is initially measured by Sand Patch method involving the use of
volume of sand. Generally, surfaces with greater macro-texture is have a better skid resistance
at high speeds.In addition, the magnitude of the variation of skidding resistance with
temperature varies considerately from road to road because of the changes in road surface
texture.

Therefore, some precautions in this experiment should be consider such as slider must
be kept clean (free) from oil and grease,sliders should be renewed when the sliding edge
becomes burred or rounded and all new sliders should be roughened before use by swinging
several times over a piece of dry road. Lastly, the calibration of the equipment should be done
before testing to avoid an error.

Conclusion

The objective of this experiment was achieved. The highest skid resistance value for
both of the pavement surface (dry and wet condition) are 69.667 and 65.333 with category A
respectively.

References

1. Analysis of Test Methods for Skid Resistance, Retrieved at

http://repositorium.sdum.uminho.pt/bitstream/1822/14550/1/SACSP1.pdf on 15 April
2017.
2. Skid Resistance Value, Retrieved at
http://www.hyd.gov.hk/en/publications_and_publicity/publications/technical_document/
guidance_notes/pdf/gn009.pdf on 15April 2017.
Appendix