Abstract
The British pendulum tester is commonly used for the measurement of skid resistance of pavement surfaces. Although it is widely suggested that the measurement is largely governed by the microtexture of the pavement surface, experience has shown that the macrotexture can also affect the measurements. It can also lead to misleading results on coarse-textured test surfaces. This paper reports the findings of a study conducted to examine the effect of macrotexture on the British pendulum measurements. The study employed a three-dimensional finite element model to analyze the behavior of the test device. The results of the analysis showed significant variations of test results on sparsely spaced textured surfaces, especially those that exhibited discontinuities. The results demonstrated that the edge impacts between coarse-textured surface features and the pendulum slider would give rise to unreliable test measurements.
