Investigation of Deformation Trends Observed in Pavement Test Section Unbound Aggregate Layers Due to Heavy Aircraft Loading with Wander

Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) built the National Airport Pavement Test Facility (NAPTF) to investigate airfield pavement responses due to complex gear loadings of new generation aircraft (NGA). One of the latest series of full-scale flexible pavement tests conducted with available field data is referred to as the Construction Cycle 5 (CC5) test, part of which is the subject of the analyses presented in this paper. The NAPTF CC5 test database includes individual pavement responses collected using installed sensors, such as multi-depth deflectometer (MDDs) due to the proximity applications of six-wheel dual-tridem gear. Pavement test sections in CC5 built with a dense graded aggregate (DGA) layer met New Jersey highway specifications, over a low strength subgrade that was selected for the analyses. The unbound aggregate base/subbase MDD data have been analyzed to investigate the layer deformation trends of pavement sections. It was seen that initially shakedown was occurring in the P209 base layers while at the same time the DGA subbase layer was deteriorating. Also, the pavement section did not show an apparent increase in residual deformations due to increased traffic. Upholding an FAA priority for research and development in the area of improved methods for airport pavement damage analyses, this paper focuses on investigating the deterioration behavior of granular layers under heavy aircraft loading.