Degradation Modeling of Polyurea Pavement Markings

Polyurea is a long life pavement marking material used for assets requiring long periods of uninterrupted accessibility. Knowing the performance characteristics of such markings is critical to asset management planning focused on maximizing marking material life-cycles. This paper presents the performance characteristics of polyurea pavement markings in North Carolina using linear regression models. The models generated by this research provide pavement marking managers with tools to better allocate limited manpower and resources in order to optimize budgets while meeting newly proposed pavement marking retroreflectivity levels of service as proposed by the Federal Highway Administration. This research constructed performance models for polyurea based on the independent variables of time, initial retroreflectivity, and lateral line location. Using the models generated by this research, the pavement marking manager can predict the level of service and remaining life of a given pavement marking. A key finding of this paper is that polyurea pavement marking degradation is significantly impacted by the type of glass bead inserted into the marking.