Concrete Pavement Strength and Beam Flexural Strength

The complete failure of a concrete pavement can be divided into three stages: from brand new to a crack initiated; from the first crack initiation to full depth and full length; and from one crack to many cracks those lead to end of pavement service life. The validation of “fatigue failure” concept embedded in Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) design specifications since 1970’s was based on an assumption: the concrete pavement strength is relatively close to the concrete beam flexural strength following ASTM C78. In past ten years, this assumption has been repeatedly verified by the full scale tests for different pavements under static and slow rolling loads at the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA’s) National Airport Pavement Test Facility (NAPTF). However, different conclusion was obtained recently based on experimental studies in [8] and [9]: the pavement strength is 2.8 times in average higher than the beam flexural strength. Their test procedures were reviewed and data were re-analyzed. It has been found that the test results themselves are reliable, but the analysis procedure leads to an overestimate of pavement strength. Three-stage failure was clearly recorded from the tests. The response at the end of second stage was analyzed using linear-elastic model that is only valid in the first stage. After the data is reanalyzed up to the end of the first stage, the conclusions by the FAA become similar.

• Record URL:
  http://www.airporttech.tc.faa.gov/Airport-R-D/Conference-and-Workshop/Airport-RD-Conference-Detail/dt/Detail/ItemID/266/Pavement-Strength-and-Beam-Flexural-Strength
• Corporate Authors:

  Federal Aviation Administration

  800 Independence Avenue, SW
  Washington, DC  United States  20591
• Authors:
  • Guo, Edward H
• Conference:
  • 2010 FAA Worldwide Airport Technology Transfer Conference
  • Location: Atlantic City New Jersey, United States
  • Date: 2010-4-20 to 2010-4-22
• Publication Date: 2010

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 14p
• Monograph Title: 2010 FAA Worldwide Airport Technology Transfer Conference: Next Generation of Airport Technology

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Airport runways; Concrete pavements; Cracking; Failure; Flexural strength; Service life; Static loads; Test procedures
• Identifier Terms: National Airport Pavement Test Facility
• Subject Areas: Aviation; Maintenance and Preservation; Pavements;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01608342
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS, ATRI, USDOT
• Created Date: Aug 6 2016 11:24AM