Cooley, L.A. Jr. and P.S. Kandhal.

Evaluation of Asphalt Pavement Analyzer as

a Tool to Predict Rutting. Proceedings, Ninth International Conference on
Asphalt Pavements, International Society for Asphalt Pavements, Copenhagen,
Denmark, August 17-22, 2002.

ABSTRACT

A standard laboratory test to predict the rutting potential of an HMA (hot mix asphalt)
that is accelerated, relatively inexpensive, and able to be used during quality
control/quality assurance testing would be of great benefit. Currently the most
common type of standardized laboratory test of this nature is a loaded wheel tester
(LWT). The purpose of this study is to evaluate the Asphalt Pavement Analyzer
(APA), the most common LWT in the U.S., to determine its suitability as a general
method of predicting the rut potential of HMA mixes. Ten HMA mixtures of known
field performance were used in a full factorial experiment. The combination of testing
parameters which provided APA rut depths closest to and highly correlated with the
actual field rut depths, were recommended to fine tune the APA testing protocol.