Assessment of Field Compaction of Aggregate Base Materials for Permeable Pavements Based on Plate Load Tests

The permeable pavement is one of Low Impact Development technics that allows stormwater to infiltrate through the pavement surface and the underlying base layer, thereby reducing surface runoff and preventing water contamination. For permeable base layers of permeable pavements, open-graded aggregates are often used to infiltrate and store stormwater in the pore of aggregate base layers. The mechanical behavior of open-graded aggregates has not been a major interest of pavement industry and society, and therefore there is much less information known for behavior of compacted open-graded aggregates comparing to dense-graded materials. This study aims at investigating the mechanical behavior of compacted permeable or open-graded aggregate base materials based on field experiments. Five different open-graded aggregates were selected, and they were compacted in the field up to 12 passes with a 10-ton vibratory compaction roller. The mechanical behaviors of aggregates were evaluated by conducting plate load tests at 2, 4, 8, and 12 passes of roller. For the test conditions considered herein, the strain modulus at the first loading seems to provide more consistent results with respect to aggregate types and level of compaction than other stiffness measures from plate load tests.