Influence of Joints on Ride Quality and Roughness Index

ABSTRACT Pavement joints may cause intense vibrations in moving vehicles, discomforting and even annoying drivers and passengers at times. International Roughness Index (IRI) and Present Serviceability Index (PSI) have been conventionally chosen to characterize pavement ride quality. In this paper, the increase of IRI and the decrease of PSI in the presence of concrete joints are analytically derived by using a vehicle model and considering different joint geometries. The dependence of the indices IRI and PSI on joint width, the vertical fault, and tire-road contact length, are explicitly derived. Theoretical predictions on the change of IRI agree well with the reported data. When integrated into a pavement management system, the proposed analysis can be employed to set limits on joint fault depth and to prepare joint maintenance schedules. KEYWORDS: Joint WidthFault DepthVibrationJointed Concrete PavementRoughness IndexRide Quality