Analyses of Airport Pavement Rutting Trends in FAA's NAPTF Construction Cycle 5 Pavement Test Sections

摘要

This paper presents findings from an ongoing research study focused on the permanent deformation behavior of full-scale airport pavements investigated through accelerated pavement testing at the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) National Airport Pavement Testing Facility (NAPTF) located in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Six instrumented airfield pavement sections built with two different subbase materials and tested under various landing gear configurations were selected from NAPTF Construction Cycle 5 (CC5) test section database and an in-depth analysis of the rutting performance due to the use of different subbase materials was conducted. Different pavement deformation trends were observed due to the effects of load wander, landing gear configurations, gear/wheel load magnitudes and sequences, and trafficking direction. In addition, deflections measured using the installed multi-depth deflectometer (MDD) gages were analyzed to determine that most of the surface rutting had occurred due to permanent deformations observed in the granular base and subbase layers. The airfield pavement rutting trends explained in this paper help to establish a better understanding of granular layer rutting damage mechanisms which will eventually result in safer designs and improved performance predictions of airport pavements.