Stiffness-Based Assessment of Pavement Foundation Materials Using Portable Tools

Traditional pavement quality assurance has focused on soil density and moisture content. Implementation of new mechanistic design methods calls for measuring the resilient modulus of constructed layers to determine whether it matches the modulus used during the pavement design process. Several tools have been marketed for this purpose in recent years. Eleven soil test beds were constructed at the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center to evaluate three of these tools. The study showed that the tools were simple to use and generally obtained repeatable results, but additional information regarding the true nature of the modulus measured by these tools was required to implement their use.