Pavement curling and warping analysis using wavelet techniques

It is universally accepted that curling and warping of jointed plain concrete pavements (JPCP) can influence pavement performance. Recent studies indicated that long-term increases in roughness for pavements could also be largely related to curling and warping changes. The objective of this study is to investigate behaviours of idealised curling profile and resulting values of parameter pseudo-strain gradient (PSG) in the frequency domain from profiles acquired from 30 sections to offer supplementary information on the characteristics of curling profile of interest. Advanced wavelet techniques, including both continuous wavelet transform (CWT) and discrete wavelet transform (DWT), were utilised to decompose profiles into different layers of details in corresponding frequency bands for analysis. A quarter-car (QC) model was applied to simulate each decomposed layer, then frequency-domain changes in PSG and International Roughness Index (IRI) were compared, with results indicating that roughness resulting from curling profile could be strongly correlated to PSG in the frequency domain. The standard deviation for the level of details from DWT also shows a better correlation to PSG than IRI in the spatial domain. The dominated frequency band for curling profile was identified to be 0.12-1.25 circle/m. Differences between CWT and DWT for profile filtering were also discussed.