A Case Study of Camera-Based Inspection for Joint Preparation Quality Assurance on Concrete Pavement Using Image Analysis

The bonding of sealants within a sawcut joint is a key to the prevention of incompressible and fine material to limit the buildup on crack faces of joints transported by infiltrating water into the pavement. Blow-up failures, in particular, are likely a result of crack face accumulations that have occurred within a joint due to a lack of bond between the face of the sawcut and the sealant. Maintaining the bond between sealant and reservoir wall is an important part of the successful maintenance of concrete pavement systems. Several studies have shown that joint sealants often suffered from premature adhesive failure between the sealant and concrete pavement. This unexpected adhesive failure may be due to inadequate joint preparations (inconsistency in managing the cleanliness of contacting surface). Measuring and controlling the condition of the reservoir wall in the field is key to improving the bond strength. Current inspection technologies for cleaning the joints used in the field subjectively assess joint face cleanliness. Moreover, in most cases, only visual-based inspection technologies are utilized that are unsuitable or inapplicable to serve as a standard quality assurance test. This paper introduces a camera-based inspection method to ensure joint preparation quality. In this new method, the cleanness of the joint is quantified using an image analysis technique. Several roughness variables from image analysis are used to assess cleanliness. The proposed camera-based inspection method can provide objective indicators for bonding surface cleanliness by overcoming the limitations of the existing cleanliness inspection method.