Concrete Pavement Overload Test at the FAA’s National Airport Pavement Test Facility

Author(s):  
H. Yin ◽  
D. R. Brill
2007 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-198
Author(s):  
Kasthurirangan Gopalakrishnan ◽  
Marshall R Thompson

Rutting is a major distress in airport flexible pavements. Subgrade vertical strain criteria are used in many airport flexible pavement design procedures to consider the development of rutting. Several research studies have identified the limitations associated with these criteria. Design criteria based on subgrade stress ratios (SSRs) are being considered for evaluating subgrade rutting in airport flexible pavements. In this paper, the SSRs based on measured vertical subgrade stresses are related to surface rutting in flexible pavements subjected to repeated trafficking of Boeing 777 and 747 simulated test gears at the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) National Airport Pavement Test Facility (NAPTF). The results indicated overstressing of the subgrade in two test sections, and this was confirmed by trench study results. A good correlation was obtained between the SSRs and the surface rut depths, supporting the validity of developing SSR-based rutting transfer functions for airport flexible pavements serving the next generation of aircraft.Key words: rutting, subgrade stress ratio (SSR), National Airport Pavement Test Facility (NAPTF), pressure cell (PC), new generation aircraft, airport flexible pavement.


Transport ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kasthurirangan Gopalakrishnan

This paper presents a simplified approach for predicting the allowable load repetitions of New Large Aircraft (NLA) loading for airfield runways based on Non‐Destructive Test (NDT) data. Full‐scale traffic test results from the Federal Aviation Administration's National Airport Pavement Test Facility (NAPTF) were used to develop the NDT‐based evaluation methodology. Four flexible test pavement sections with variable (unbound layer) thicknesses were trafficked using six‐wheel and four‐wheel NLA test gears until the test pavements were deemed failed. Non‐destructive tests using a Heavy Weight Deflectometer (HWD) were conducted prior to the initiation of traffic testing to measure the pavement surface deflections. In the past, pavement surface deflections have been successfully used as an indicator of airport pavement life. In this study, the HWD surface deflections and the derived Deflection Basin Parameters (DBPs) were related to functional performance of NAPTF flexible pavements through simple regression analysis. The results demonstrated the usefulness of NDT data for predicting the performance of airport flexible pavements serving the next generation of aircrafts.


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