Evaluation of the slurry seal as a pavement surface treatment method on the road surface friction resistance

A modern highway must be capable of proving traffic safety, comfort to passenger cars as well as efficient and economical transportation. In view of the increase in the number of traffic accidents due to the developments in automotive industry, the traffic safety has gathered too much consideration in recent years among the other factors. In order to provide safety traffic the friction resistance between the vehicle tire and surface should be in certain level. The surface of a highway on the other hand must provide enough adherences between the thread of the tire and the road surface enabling the cars to stop in safety way in case of application of the brakes. Especially in rainy climate, the friction resistance in question decreases to very small values. The researches in this field point out that the decrease in the value of friction increases the rate of traffic accidents. Therefore in order to determine the friction resistance, the surface of the road must be evaluated periodically. The mean surface texture depth of the road on the other hand must be evaluated with the frictional characteristics. In this work, the mean texture depth characteristics were determined with every three months period by the sand path test and also the dynamic friction test was also applied to evaluate the frictional characteristics of the slurry seal applied road sections in İzmir. The gathered data together with the traffic characteristics were linked with the traffic accident date obtained from Security General Directorate of Izmir in order to build various models. In conclusion, the importance of the road surface texture on traffic safety of was also discussed. Cost analysis is done for Slurry seal. Thus in addition, more detailed data about the performance and cost of slurry seal type surface treatment was obtained.