Assessing Damage to Airport Pavement Structure due to Complex Gear Loads
Publication: Journal of Transportation Engineering
Volume 132, Issue 11
Abstract
The Federal Aviation Administration’s National Airport Pavement Test Facility (NAPTF) was constructed to generate high-quality, full-scale accelerated test data from pavements subjected to dynamic simulated heavy aircraft traffic. During the first round of testing, the flexible pavement sections were subjected to dual-tridem Boeing 777 gear and dual-tandem Boeing 747 gear trafficking to study and compare their effect on pavement structural responses and rutting performance. This paper presents the results from traffic testing on a low-strength subgrade flexible pavement section with a substantially thick unbound granular subbase layer. Data from in situ instrumentation and heavy weight deflectometer (HWD) testing were analyzed at different stages of trafficking to evaluate the pavement structural deterioration imposed by the test gears. At the end of traffic testing, posttraffic forensic investigation studies were conducted to investigate the failure mechanism of pavement structures. The results showed that the maximum HWD deflections , the backcalculated moduli, and the mean rut depths were similar for both test gears throughout the traffic testing. Some correlation may exist between percentage change and the accumulated rutting.
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Acknowledgments
This paper was prepared from a study conducted at the Center of Excellence (COE) for Airport Technology. Funding for the COE is provided in part by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The COE is maintained at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, which works in partnership with Northwestern University and the FAA. Ms. Patricia Watts is the FAA Program Manager for the Air Transportation COE and Dr. Satish Agrawal is the Manager of the FAA Airport Technology R&D Branch. The contents of this paper reflect the views of the writers, who are responsible for the facts and accuracy of the data presented within. The contents do not necessarily reflect the official views and policies of the FAA. This paper does not constitute a standard, specification, or regulation. Special thanks go to Dr. Franco Gomez-Ramirez of EPSA-LABCO, Dominican Republic; Dr. David R. Brill and Dr. Gordon Hayhoe of FAA; and Dr. Navneet Garg of SRA International, Inc., for their help.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Transportation Engineering
Volume 132 • Issue 11 • November 2006
Pages: 888 - 897
Copyright
© 2006 ASCE.
History
Received: Oct 24, 2005
Accepted: Feb 28, 2006
Published online: Nov 1, 2006
Published in print: Nov 2006
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