Assessment of skid resistance of asphalt mixtures in laboratory conditions

The aggregate applied for the wearing course has a significant influence on skid resistance of road surfaces. However, it is difficult to evaluate the behaviour of road surface in use on the basis of the Polished Stone Value (PSV) determined for the aggregate according to the so called ‘British method’. The British method, which is currently used in many countries, does not allow to determine the influence of neither the grain size of the aggregate nor the type of the wearing course on skid resistance of road surface. The present paper suggests a method for evaluation of the British Pendulum Number (BPN) for road surfaces in laboratory conditions. The authors assumed the BPN for polished slabs, made from asphalt mixtures, as the criterion. The index was measured with the British Pendulum Tester. The simulation of the process was conducted on research stand (called slab polisher) built at Bialystok University of Technology (BUT). The results of laboratory tests indicate that surfaces from asphalt concrete (AC) have slightly higher values of BPN in comparison with the values determined for surfaces made from stone mastic asphalt (SMA).