Effects of road particulate contaminants on pavement skid resistance

Abstract

To understand the effect of particulate contaminants on pavement skid resistance, the friction numbers of three surfaces under different pollution conditions (particle size, coverage fraction, and shape factor) were measured using a British Pendulum Tester (BPT). The results show that less than 45% coverage fraction of the particles above 0.3 mm even results in almost 50% friction loss at a low speed of 10 km/h. In this situation, the rougher surface has a stronger holding particles capacity. Moreover, the particle size determining the lowest friction level gradually increases as the surface roughness increases. The particle size of 1.18–2.36 mm is the most typical size range leading to a low friction level. In addition, the friction first drops sharply and then increases slowly with the coverage fraction increases, which also conforms to the Stribeck curve.

Highlight

• The skid resistance of road surfaces covered with particles was tested.

• Effects of particle size, coverage fraction, and shape on friction were analysed.

• Potential hazard scenarios with particulate contaminants were discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Particulate contaminants
• road surface texture
• skid resistance
• lubrication effect
• Stribeck curve

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

Some or all data, models, or code that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Open Fund of Key Laboratory of Road and Bridge Detection and Maintenance Technology of Zhejiang Province  [grant number 202203Z], the Key Laboratory of Transport Industry of Road Structure and Materials, and National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number U20A201154].