Design and Strenght Assessment

Once the structural pavement parameters are assessed, the life (or bearing capacity) can be determined. The (residual) pavement life is derived by deducting the historical load repetitions from the initial allowable number of load repetitions corrected for lateral wander.

Design and Assessment

The user may compose his own fleet for evaluation out of a database with the load characteristics of aircraft and truck data. Own loads can be entered into this database. The accumulated pavement damage is assessed by adding the damage of the aircraft, taking into account the position of the loads on the pavement. Wander effects are addressed with a normalised beta-distribution. Pavers ® calculates the most heavily loaded strip of the pavement due to a specific fleet. The complex frequency distribution and different gear loads are analytically transferred into a fatigue damage distribution of the pavement along different tracks and positions on the slab or flexible pavement. Accumulation of the effects of the number of load repetitions is made on the basis of Miner's damage hypothesis for all pavement materials, i.e. concrete, flexible layers, foundation sub-base layers and subgrade. Based on the historical traffic data, present structural condition and traffic forecast, insight in future structural deterioration is gained.

The unique rigid model code of Pavers ® allows to use the same method for dealing with aircraft wander as for asphalt pavements, eliminating the pass-to-load repetition concept for rigid pavements. The program rationally take into account variable lateral aircraft wander, which is believed to be more realistic than the coverage concept.

Calibration of critical design parameters to pavement response, lead to a sound understanding of pavement behaviour. Implementation of these calibrated into modern software tools and pavement design and assessment methodologies will ultimately lead to better pavement designs and predictions. These tools are available and can assist airport authorities and responsible pavement engineers to make structural pavement condition a practical and managerial pavement parameter.