Quality control of compaction with lightweight deflectometer (LWD) device: a state-of-art

Abstract

Abstract The infrastructure plays a vital role in stimulating economic growth. Any infra project requires proper planning, design, construction, quality control (QC), and quality assessment (QA). It is important to comply with QC and QA to avoid failure and enhance the long-term pavement performance in order to provide a safe and solid system of transportation. Researchers were replacing laborious and time-consuming density-based methods (sand cone and/or core cutter) with advanced stiffness or modulus-based NDT devices for the QC of compacted geomaterials. The lightweight deflectometer (LWD) is such a highly advanced and sophisticated device that was developed to evaluate the deformation modulus (ELWD) of compacted geomaterials as an alternative of density test. This device is portable, light-weight, user-friendly, and it is ideally suitable for all constructional geomaterials. This study is intended to provide a state-of-the-art on the LWD device as well as presented the ranges of deformation modulus for various geomaterials from several studies. For instance, in the case of soils, aggregates, and asphalt materials deformation modulus values were found to be in the range of 35–60 MPa, 80–120 MPa, and 120–170 MPa respectively. In addition, several studies have been compiled to completely comprehend the relationship between LWD and various devices.

Keywords

• Quality control (QC)
• Compacted geomaterials
• Lightweight deflectometer (LWD)
• Deformation modulus (ELWD)