A wind farm consisting of 72 turbines is to be constructed in the Town of Lakeshore, in Southwestern Ontario. For the construction, turbine components will be hauled on a network of rural low-volume roads. When these roads were designed and built, their use for the heavy haul required by the wind farm development was never envisaged. Consequently, the Town of Lakeshore commissioned a baseline study of the roads under their jurisdiction identified on the proposed haul routes. A total of 55 road segments, with gravel, surface-treated (chip-sealed) and asphalt surfaces was examined. The study included visual pavement condition assessment, falling weight deflectometer (FWD) testing, photographic work, and video recording. The following are covered in the paper: the considerations that went into the design of a cost-efficient, successful field testing program; the methods used for the pavement condition survey; the arrangement of the FWD study; the results of the pavement condition survey; the results of the FWD study; and recommendations for follow-up study of the haul roads.
