Abstract
In late 2003, the City of Houston determined Runway (R/W) 15L-33R at George Bush Intercontinental Airport/Houston (IAH) should be rehabilitated in order to provide an additional 20 years of useful life. The City required the Engineering Consultants to provide two possible pavement rehabilitation options one of which to include a PCC overlay or remove and reinstall the keel section. The existing runway was originally constructed under 3 different contracts. The original contract constructed the North 2440 m (sta 0+003 to sta 0+027) in 1968 and consisted of a 200 mm sand-shell sub-base with a 304 mm PCC slab which was later overlaid with a 457 mm PCC partially bonded overlay in 1976. At the same time, a 1220 m extension was added on the south end (sta 0+027 to sta 0+039) which consisted of a 533 mm PCC layer over a 152 mm asphalt treated sub-base. The rehabilitation strategy proposed for this project was developed by using an innovative approach to interlayer stiffness in determining the existing condition of the runway, performing both fatigue and deflection analyses on the existing pavement structure for each section, and finally identifying pavement design criteria to configure each rehabilitation strategy. The fatigue analysis was not elaborate and was determined by the Layered Elastic Airport Pavement Design software (LEDFAA v1.3), taking into account damage by the critical stress imposed by each aircraft included in the runway traffic mix. Since LEDFAA does not consider the accumulation of permanent deformation in the subgrade under deflection imposed by each aircraft, deflection criteria was developed in order to give a more complete picture of what different rehabilitation options offer performance-wise. Deflection design criteria was formulated to prevent permanent deformation in the subgrade due to loads imposed by the heavy aircraft included in the runway traffic mix. Permanent deformation of this nature may lead to loss of support below the slab. As greater demands are being placed on our airport systems by increasing traffic and loading, improved pavement rehabilitation analysis and design methods are needed to fully account for all factors manifest in the condition of the pavement. This paper presents an innovative approach to account for the many factors influencing concrete pavement stiffness regarding the design and analysis of rehabilitation alternatives. The approach described affords practitioners a tool to realistically take into account current pavement conditions and future traffic loadings.
Published Version
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