Evaluation of road safety installations with a model rutting tester

Passively lighted reflector systems are used increasingly for improving pedestrian security. They are glued on the road surface in front of pedestrian crossings and are exposed to any kind of traffic loading. In order to achieve durable and reliable functioning of these reflectors, the mechanical behaviour of the road reflectors themselves, as well as the contact zone between the reflectors and the road surface under alternating wheel loading plays a critical role. The reflector system consisted of the reflector with special glue and a cover material. A one third scale model mobile load simulator (MMLS3) was used to investigate the traffic load performance of the reflector-road construction for both old and new compacted asphalt pavement specimens, at two different elevated constant temperatures. It was observed that the contact zone between the reflector and surface of the new specimen was destroyed in the rutting zone after some thousands of cycles. In order to determine the position and shape of cavities and debonding effects in one tested specimen, infrared (IR) thermography measurements were, carried out. In addition to the MMLS3 traffic simulation tests, resistance to temperature cycles was tested on an old compacted asphalt pavement specimen with the aim to investigate the adhesive behaviour of the reflectors and cover material after 20 temperature cycles. Quasistatic pull-off tests were carried out on all reflectors exceptor for the reflectors on the new asphalt specimen.[PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]