Structural Analysis of Flexible Airfield Pavements

The elastic moduli of pavement materials of conventional flexible airfield pavements are evaluated based on behavior pattern inherent in the CBR equation. This is based on the principle that a pavement designed by the CBR equation should have a thickness sufficient to prevent shear fatigue in the subgrade soil and thus two pavements designed by the CBR equation for the same load repetition level would experience approximately equal shearing strains at the surface of the subgrade soils. The computed maximum shearing strains are correlated with the performance of many full-scale accelerated traffic test sections for both single-wheel and multiple-wheel assemblies, and their applications to design of pavements and evaluation of mixed traffic and overlays are illustrated.