Selection of High-Temperature Binder PG Grades for Airfield Pavements

Most highway departments in the United States and Canada have over the past 10 years adopted performance-graded (PG) binders for use in constructing hot mix asphalt pavements, forcing airfield pavement construction practice to adopt this approach to grading asphalts. The purpose of this study was to develop an effective and efficient system for selecting PG binders for use in airfield pavements. This required consideration of many factors and conditions that are substantially different from those encountered in highway pavements, the most important of these being tire pressure and aircraft/vehicle wander. The high tire pressures used in many aircraft landing gear will cause a significant increase in rutting rate compared to that caused by truck traffic, requiring a higher PG binder grade at a given traffic level. The procedure developed for selecting high-temperature PG grades used the newly developed LTPPBind Version 3.1 software, in combination with the rutting model developed for use in the 2001 Pavement Design Guide. The rutting model was used to develop a relationship between tire pressure and rutting damage that can then be used to adjust the base high-temperature PG grade recommended in the LTPPBind software. Traffic wander is considered in the system through pass-to-coverage ratios. Using this approach, a simple system has been developed for determining the required high temperature PG grade for a given runway/taxiway as a function of design aircraft weight and average annual departures. The proposed system has been evaluated and refined through comparison with both current practice and performance records at a number of existing airfields. Although there is both practical and theoretical evidence suggesting that hot mix asphalt (HMA) pavements at airfields may be somewhat more prone to low-temperature cracking compared to highway pavements, it was determined that the most efficient means of addressing this performance issue was through adjustments in the HMA mix design.

• Record URL:
  • http://www.airporttech.tc.faa.gov/Airport-R-D/Conference-and-Workshop/Airport-RD-Conference-Detail/dt/Detail/ItemID/387/Selection-of-High-Temperature-Binder-PG-Grades-for-Airfield-Pavements
• Record URL:
  • http://www.airtech.tc.faa.gov/naptf/att07/2007/Papers/P07037%20Christensen%20et%20al.pdf
• 
• Corporate Authors:

  Federal Aviation Administration

  800 Independence Avenue, SW
  Washington, DC  United States  20591
• Authors:
  • Christensen, Donald W
  • McQueen, Roy
  • Bahia, Hussain U
• Conference:
  • 2007 Worldwide Airport Technology Transfer Conference
  • Location: Atlantic City New Jersey, United States
  • Date: 2007-4-16 to 2007-4-18
• Publication Date: 2007

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 17p
• Monograph Title: 2007 FAA Worldwide Airport Technology Transfer Conference: New Directions in Airport Technology

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Airport runways; Binders; High temperature; Hot mix asphalt; Mix design; Tire pressure
• Uncontrolled Terms: Lateral wander (Aircraft); Performance grade; Traffic wander
• Subject Areas: Aviation; Pavements;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01617382
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS, ATRI, USDOT
• Created Date: Nov 21 2016 1:43PM