1.3 Non-destructive Testing (NDT)
NDT is the collective term for evaluations conducted on an
existing pavement structure that do not require subsequent maintenance
work to return the pavement to its pretesting state. This is generally
desirable to minimize disruption to traffic, and is essential as
a screening tool to determine locations where selective material
sampling should be conducted to evaluate other material properties
in the laboratory. As such, its focus is to assess in situ properties
that can be used to evaluate the need for further “destructive”
testing (i.e., coring, boring, trenching), location of that destructive testing,
and the current structural capacity of the highway as related to
layer stiffness and strength. Non-destructive testing methods can
assess either functional or structural condition. For NDT, data collected
in the field is generally objective in nature, but engineer’s data
analysis and interpretation are subjective.