Evolution of tire-pavement friction with the regular surface macro-texture characteristics and environmental factors using three-dimensional (3D) printing technology

Conventional gradation-based pavement design makes the constructed pavement surface too complex to quantify the contribution of texture on the tire-pavement friction accurately. This study aims to investigate the influence of regular macro-texture characteristics and environmental factors on friction using three-dimensional (3D) printing technology. The variation of friction with different texture shapes, heights, and gaps was investigated under dry and wet conditions. The evolutions of friction under different water film thicknesses and temperatures were also quantitatively analyzed. The results show that all specimens with different texture shapes, heights, and gaps can contribute to large friction under dry conditions, where the British pendulum number (BPN) is larger than 90. The friction sharply decreases under wet conditions, especially for the semi-circular texture specimens. The specimens with positive textures are much better than those with negative textures. The impact of texture shapes is more significant than texture height and gaps under wet conditions, where the texture gaps are relatively insignificant. The friction is slightly linearly increased with the water film thickness while slightly decreasing with the temperature. This study provides a friction-oriented pavement texture design method and manufacturing techonology.