Continuous Friction Monitoring Equipment (CFME) for highway maintenance programs.
When looking for CFME for a winter road maintenance program, the first question to ask is whether the machine will stand up to long distances at highway speeds, and the second question is "What is the quality of the data at highway speeds?"
Highway Speed CFME was virtually non-existent prior to the development of IceChek’s system. There is a lot of CFME equipment that will not produce the required sensitivity at highway speeds.
What to look for when buying any CFME product
- Consistency or "reproduce-ability" in repeated test runs over the same stretch of highway. We suggest exporting a file of readings into a spreadsheet program and creating an X-Y line graph as a simple means of comparing data. The average reading between any two geographical points on the test run should be close (within a few percentage points) in repeated test runs.
- Well-defined graphs at the beginning and end of icy patches on the highway are also important.
- The delay between the time the testing vehicle passes over a point on the road and the time that the actual friction measurement for the point is displayed. The readings must correspond to the new friction level or approach the new friction level within a few seconds.
- To determine the general accuracy of any equipment, compare CFME measurements with data obtained on the same surface in braking tests using a decelerometer. If you do not have access to a decelerometer, you can measure stopping distance with a tape measure the old-fashioned way.