Impact of Heavy Airplanes on Asphalt Surface Behaviour, a Need for a Different Material Design

Abstract

Airport pavements have been historical designed with empirical methods such as ACN-PCN method. Over the last decade, more analytical methods have emerged to answer concerns from the use of increased airplane sizes. FAARFIELD in the US or Alize Airport in Europe are comprehensive tools to design and predict pavement behaviour for various airplane categories. With the configuration of the super jumbo jets with high weight/high tire pressure, such as A380, B787, the pavement structure behaves differently and, in some cases, suffers particular surface cracking out of the wheel path. This was observed during the Accelerated Pavement Testing program carried out for the evaluation of the A380 impact on pavement. Thanks to the pavement analytical tools, a deeper analysis of strain distribution, within the whole pavement structure, shows that, while the main fatigue design criteria is still at the bottom of asphalt layers, the pavement surface can suffer as well from fatigue cracking. The top layer materials have to contribute both to the resistance to permanent deformation, and to the resistance to fatigue cracking under heavy loading/high-pressure tires. This means, large airport facilities require the use of specifically designed asphalt materials with enhanced characteristics against rutting and fatigue.