ANALYSIS OF PAVEMENT RESPONSES TO AIRCRAFT AND ENVIRONMENTAL LOADING AT DENVER INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

Abstract

Monitoring in-service pavements is important for further understanding the pavement behavior under repeated loading. Many road tests were constructed for understanding the behavior of concrete pavements under highway truck loading. However, there has been very limited testing and monitoring of airport pavements. At the Denver International Airport, dynamic and static sensors were installed in the pavement structure during construction of runway 34R-16L in 1994. These sensors are used to monitor pavement responses due to aircraft loading and environment. This paper focuses on the analysis of displacements produced by two critical aircraft types: B-777 and B-727. A sensitivity analysis of the calculated displacement profiles was conducted for several input parameters using the ILLI-SLAB finite element program. Data acquired from thermocouples, position sensors, and deflectometers placed in the runway pavement are compared to the analytical results. Data from position sensors are used to determine the transverse gear load position for each aircraft within the instrumented section. Thermocouple readings were used to determine the temperature profile to be used in the numerical analysis to calculate responses for combined aircraft and environmental loading.