LAUSR

ABSTRACT Determination and measurement of the characteristics of surface distresses such as cracking are the important tasks of pavement maintenance authorities. The measurement of main characteristics including the extent, severity, and intensity of cracking, results in a better assessment of pavement condition. The cracking intensity (crack spacing) can be expressed and developed based on the spatial distribution of cracks. Due to the difficulty of measuring the cracking intensity, the importance of this main attribute has been rarely considered. In addition, a practical method has not been provided for measuring and determining the distribution of cracking in the selected pavement section. In this paper, using the locations of pavement surface cracks and GIS, a practical method is proposed for representing and determining the intensity of cracking through identifying the spatial distribution of pavement cracks at the project level to evaluate the proposed method, longitudinal, transverse, and alligator cracks were investigated in several pavement sections. The cracking assessment was performed by the use of an automated data collection system and the location-based image processing technique in GIS. The results of the study show that through the usage of the proposed method, the intensity of cracking can be determined and considered practically as the main attribute of cracking.