Exploratory analysis of accelerated wear testing to evaluate performance of pavement markings

Wear testing of pavement markings in the United States is commonly performed by AASHTO's National Transportation Product Evaluation Program. The pavement markings evaluated in this program are applied in a transverse manner along existing roadways, and a variety of objective measures are collected over a 2-year period. This paper reports the findings from an exploratory study on using the Model Mobile Load Simulator, third scale (MMLS3), to evaluate pavement marking performance along transverse test sections. Accelerated trafficking on wet and dry pavement surfaces was applied on sections of markings consisting of various waterborne paint products, marking thicknesses, and bead types and densities. Pavement marking retroreflectivity measurements were recorded at various stages of MMLS3 trafficking and compared with measurements of a test deck consisting of the same pavement markings subjected to live traffic. The findings suggest that the MMLS3 can consistently replicate the degradation pattern of the various pavement markings with regard to loss of retroreflectivity as a function of traffic passages. Performance varied among the various types of markings, with higher retroreflectivity observed for thicker markings with higher bead densities. Trafficking on wet pavement surfaces accelerated the degradation of the markings' retroreflectivity.