In-situ super accelerated pavement test for the fatigue evaluation of in-service airfield rigid pavement – A case study at Mecham Airport

• A methodology for the full-scale and in-situ accelerated pavement testing (APT) on in-service airfield pavement. • Load simulation of aircraft traffic loading over 20-year equivalent loading cycle using the SDD. • Fatigue assessment of in-service airfield rigid pavement with three loading points (center, edge, corner). This paper presents an in-situ super-accelerated pavement (SAP) testing to assess the remaining service life of airfield rigid pavement at Fort Worth Meacham International Airport, U.S.A. Under the simulated aircraft-loading scenario by SAP testing, the pavement response, particularly dynamic deflection, was monitored. This in-situ accelerated pavement testing (APT) program had two-phase studies. First, the candidate testing locations were identified by using the Rolling Dynamic Deflectoemter (RDD) test (on both runway and taxiway) that provides structural conditions of pavement in the form of continuous pavement deflection profiles. Compared to the deflection levels of Runway 16/34, we selected three test locations for SAP testing, adjacent to Runway 16/34 (due to the limited time usage of the runway). Second, the Stationary Dynamic Deflectometer (SDD) was used for SAP testing. The SDD applied nearly 200,000 loading repetition applications to the three loading positions of center, edge, and corner at each selected test site. Pavement deflection responses were monitored, and the analysis led to two main findings that: (a) no visible crack occurred during SAP testing, which means no significant fatigue failure at any slab and (b) an acceptable level of pavement deflection response of the airfield pavement for all test slabs. It is concluded that airplane loading without environmental loading may not lead to significant deterioration for the airfield pavements over the next 20 years.