Long-term field performance of porous asphalt pavement in China

Porous asphalt (PA) pavement has been widely used in the USA, Europe and Japan for the benefit of quick drainage in rainy days and noise reduction. Its application in China, however, is very limited. A PA pavement section, therefore, was paved in Yan-Tong highway in Jiangsu Province as a trial. Since China has no specifications for the design and construction of PA pavements, the Construction Bureau of Traffic Engineering in Jiangsu Province is very concerned with the field performances of the test section in hope of validating and improving the PA pavement designs. Thus, a five-years tracking programme was launched to collect performance data of the PA section and two control sections, the stone mastic asphalt section and the dense graded asphalt section. The investigation range covers permeability, skid resistance (microtexture level and macrotexture level), rutting, roughness and noise on truck lane, passenger car lane and overtaking lane. The overall assessment is that the three pavement sections provide satisfactory performances over the investigation period. However, the unique merit associated with the PA section, that is to drain the water and reduce noise, witnesses a substantial loss along with time.