Catalogue of

Defects

Longitudinal
Crack

Transverse
Crack

Description

The direction of
crack is parallel to
the flow of traffic.

Causes

Fatigue pavement, unstable base and poor

construction.

The asphalt
Temperature drop significantly, shrinkage of the
perpendicular to the
hot mix asphalt (HMA) surface due to low
pavements
temperature of asphalt binder hardening,
centerline.
reflective crack caused by cracks beneath the
surface of HMA layer

Interconnecting or
interlaced cracking
Asphalt pavement distress instigated by sub-base
in the asphalt layer.
Crocodile Crack
failure, poor drainage and repeated
The cell size can
overloading.
vary in size up to
300 mm.

Examples

Block Crack

Interconnected
Hot mix asphalt shrinkage and temperature
crack that divided
cycling are the major cause of the block
the pavement into
cracking. The asphalt binder was unable to
rectangular piece.
expand can contract due to asphalt binder
The block range
aging and poor choice of asphalt binder in the
size can range from
mix of design.
0.1 m2 to 9m2 .

Raveling

The progressive
Loss of bonding between aggregate particles and
disintegration of the
the asphalt binder as a result of coating on
hot mix asphalt
dusty aggregate, aggregate segregation,
layer (HMA) as a
inadequate compaction during construction
result of
and mechanical dislodging by certain types of
dislodgement of
traffic.
aggregate particles.

Delamination

Respected roads
was loss large
discrete area of the
wearing coarse
layer, usually this
failure is
conjunction with a
clear delineation of
the wearing coarse
from the layer
below.

Inadequate cleaning during constructing the road

Inadequate tack coat before placing upper layer
Seepage of water through asphalt resulting in the
breaking of the bind between surface and layer
below
Adhesion of surface binder to the tires of
vehicles

Potholes

Patch

The presence of the water in the underlying soil

structure and the presence of traffic passing
Hole break of road
over the affected area. When the water was
pavement. Pothole
introduced into the underlying soil structure it
usually accompany
will weaken the supporting soil. After this area
with crocodile
has been affected traffic flow will break the
crack.
poorly supported asphalt surface. Continued
traffic action will ejects both asphalt and the
underlying soil material to create a hole in the
pavement.
A portion of new
hot mix asphalt
overlay an old
Treating the local distress on the pavement.
pavement. Normally
During the treating process the cold mix
this is due to
asphalt was introduce to repair the distress on
treating distress in
the pavement.
localized area