D-Cracking Rehabilitation at Kansas City International

Kansas City International Airport (MCI) constructed a majority of their Portland cement concrete (PCC) pavements in the late 1990's and early 2000's. Currently most of the PCC at the airport has durability related cracking (D-cracking) associated with poor aggregate properties. Runway 1L-19R is an un-bonded PCC overlay system constructed in 1998 with a significant amount of pre-existing underlying pavement structure. The original PCC pavement section was constructed in 1959 using 12-14 inches of concrete. Subsequent 6-inch asphalt concrete (AC) overlays occurred in 1968 and 1983. After 1998, the runway section consisted of 15 inches of PCC on 13-15 inches of AC on the original 12-14 inches of PCC. D-cracking in this overlay was originally witnessed at or around 2008 when Airport Operations began collecting debris from the runway, ranging anywhere from 1-3 inches in diameter. By 2011, the D-cracking was observed to have accelerated quickly on the runway and coincided with the increased usage associated with airline growth and mergers. The Kansas City Aviation Department (KCAD) performed concrete partial depth repair and panel replacement projects in an attempt to mitigate these distresses. However, as the D-cracking accelerated, Foreign Object Debris (FOD) became a daily challenge for Airport Operations to manage, with Operations collecting almost a 5-gallon bucket of debris per day. In 2011, with the runway not yet reaching the prescribed 20 year design life, KCAD decided to rehabilitate and considered numerous options. This paper will discuss both the operational and rehabilitation challenges associated with functional deterioration caused by the D-cracking on Runway 1L-19R.