Road Weather Management Program
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Best Practices for Road Weather Management Version 2.0

Title:

Evaluation of Instrumentation for Monitoring Seasonal Variations in Pavement Subgrade Water Content

Abstract:

A comprehensive instrumentation system was installed at four sites across the state of Tennessee to monitor long-term seasonal changes in subgrade water content. This paper summarizes the instrumentation and evaluates each of the monitoring methods. The instrumentation included a complete weather station, time domain reflectometry probes, temperature sensors in the pavement and subgrade, free-drainage pan lysimeters, and resistivity probes. The paper describes problems encountered, how they were resolved, the value of the data obtained, and provides recommendations based on the lessons learned from the 5-years of data collection.

Source(s):

85th Transportation Research Board (TRB) Annual Meeting; University of Tennessee, Amec Earth and Environmental and University of Nebraska. For an electronic copy of this resource, please direct your request to WeatherFeedback@dot.gov.

Date: 2006

Author:

Rainwater, Wright, Drumm, Zuo, Yoder

Keywords:


Subsurface conditions
Climate/Season

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