Fatigue models for airfield concrete pavement: Review and discussion

The fatigue model plays an important role in the mechanistic-empirical design procedure of airfield pavement. As for cement concrete pavement, the fatigue model represents the relationship between the stress and the number of load repetitions. To further understand the fatigue model, a review was performed in this paper along with the discussion. In this paper, the regression analysis process and stress calculation method of each fatigue model were summarized. Besides, the fatigue model proposed by Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) were compared with the model of Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC). The results show that the designed slab using the fatigue model of FAA is thicker than that of CAAC, meaning that the fatigue model of FAA is conservative comparatively. Moreover, the results indicate that both the differences of the slab thickness become more significant with the increase of the wheel load and the foundation strength. And then, the recommendation was proposed to refine the fatigue model in the future study.