Evaluation of Nontraditionally Surfaced Airfield Pavements

The U.S. military typically operates its aircraft on traditionally surfaced pavements such as Portland cement concrete (PCC) or asphalt concrete (AC), for which there are well-established methodologies for evaluating their surface conditions and structural performance. There is, however, a lack of pavement evaluation guidance for nontraditionally surfaced airfield pavements that may be encountered around the world. Aircraft operations, such as training exercises, humanitarian relief missions, or personnel evacuations may be conducted in remote regions of developing countries where access to traditionally paved airfield infrastructure meeting International Civil Aviation Organization standards is not available. Nontraditionally surfaced airfield pavements of particular interest include those with wearing surfaces comprised of sand asphalt, penetration macadam, bituminous surface treatments (applied over prepared bases), and stabilized soils/aggregates. These pavement types may be encountered in regions where airfield quality AC or PCC are either not readily available or they are too cost-, labor-, or equipment-intensive to use. Additionally, these surface types may have been used at airfields designed to support lighter aircraft with fewer operations. This paper presents evaluation procedures for predicting the performance of these pavement types for aircraft. The identification of key surface distresses and recommendations for the visual and structural assessment of each pavement type are also presented. Recommendations for improving the evaluation procedure through field verification tests are discussed.