Asphalt Mixture Segregation Detection: Digital Image Processing Approach

Segregation determination in the asphalt pavement is an issue causing many disputes between agencies and contractors. The visual inspection method has commonly been used to determine pavement texture and in-place core density test used for verification. Furthermore, laser-based devices, such as the Florida Texture Meter (FTM) and the Circular Track Meter (CTM), have recently been developed to evaluate the asphalt mixture texture. In this study, an innovative digital image processing approach is used to determine pavement segregation. In this procedure, the standard deviation of the grayscale image frequency histogram is used to determine segregated regions. Linear Discriminate Analysis (LDA) is then implemented on the obtained standard deviations from image processing to classify pavements into the segregated and nonsegregated areas. The visual inspection method is utilized to verify this method. The results have demonstrated that this new method is a robust tool to determine segregated areas in newly paved FC9.5 pavement types.