COMPARISON OF NUCLEAR AND CORE PAVEMENT DENSITY-MEASUREMENTS

Quality of highway construction is a major concern for highway agency engineers and contractors, and density of asphalt-concrete pavement is one of the primary quality-control parameters. The present study eval uates the use of the nuclear gauge as a prospective quality-control to ol by comparing nuclear-gauge performance with core density measuremen ts. Density measurements were recorded by the contractor and the highw ay department using both core and nuclear-gauge methods on four paving projects, and statistical analyses conducted to compare the results. The analyses indicate that there is no statistical difference between the testers (contractor or highway department) or in the variability o f the measurements obtained by the different methods. However, it is o bserved that that the means of the measurements obtained by the differ ent methods are statistically different and that density variability d epends on type of mix. A multiple-regression model is developed that c orrelates core density with nuclear gauge readings and type of pavemen t.