Materials and Road Research | Pavement Preservation
Pavement Preservation guidance
Manuals
MnDOT Pavement Preservation Manual (PDF) - revised Feb. 25, 2020
This document provides information regarding the use of pavement preservation strategies for maintaining pavement condition.
MnDOT Maintenance Manual, Chapter 3: Smooth Roads (PDF)
The MnDOT Maintenance Manual provides guidance on many aspects of highway maintenance. The intention of this manual is to provide information on the practices and guidelines established and practiced by MnDOT for maintenance operations.
Guides
Seal Coat Handbook (PDF) - revised in 2022
This handbook provides a solid background in seal coat materials, equipment, design and construction for the field inspector.
Seal Coat Design - software
The Seal Coat Design Program was developed to aid in determining material types, quantities and application rates for a seal coat project.
Sinusoidal Rumbles and Chips Seal Preventative Maintenance One Pager (PDF)
This document provides guidance on how to treat sinusoidal rumbles when chip sealing a roadway. The goal is to provide information on how to chip seal a roadway, a proven preventative maintenance activity, without degrading or negating the effectiveness of sinusoidal rumbles.
Reports
How Effective is Crack Sealing?
Crack sealing and filling can be cost-effective treatments when applied while the pavement is still in a state of good repair. This document is a summary of a report on a long-term research study of crack sealing on Lee County Road 159 near the National Center for Asphalt Technology in Auburn, AL. Additional test sections have been constructed on low and high traffic volume roadways in Alabama and Minnesota in 2015 and 2016 to improve the accuracy of the research results.
Micro Milling Investigation (PDF)
This document investigates the yearly changes in ride quality (International Roughness Index) from several different micro mill projects around the state. The effectiveness of micro milling to improve ride quality when combined with three different surface treatments is summarized.
Observations taken March 1 and 2, 2017.
MnDOT has a long history and success with using micro surface. This document summarizes MnDOT's efforts to improve micro surface performance.