Rutting Feasibility Study of Reclaimed Asphalt Pavement (RAP) for Use in Airfield Asphalt Concrete Mixes Under the Influence of High Aircraft Tire Pressure and Pavement Temperature

Abstract

Reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) is abundantly used in highway paving. The asphalt paving industry has also been using warm mix asphalt (WMA) with RAP to ensure mixture workability. Conversely, the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) current construction specification restricts the use of RAP in the surface layers of airfield runway and taxiway paving projects funded through the Airport Improvement Program (AIP). Therefore, the FAA’s National Airport Pavement and Materials Research Center recently embarked on an accelerated pavement study in Test Cycle 2 (TC2) to evaluate WMA–RAP for surface courses in airfield asphalt pavement. A total of six test lanes, each encompassing three different test sections, were constructed. Lane 1 paved with conventional PG76-22 hot mix asphalt (HMA) served as the control one, whereas lanes 5 and 6 were surfaced with latex-treated PG64-22 organic WMA without and with RAP, respectively. Respective test sections on the northside were trafficked with a 272.7 kN moving wheel load exerting a 1.75 MPa tire pressure using the sixth-generation heavy vehicle simulator, airfields (HVS-A). The pavement temperature 5.1 cm below the surface was controlled at 48.9°C throughout the traffic tests. Periodic rutting measurements indicated comparable performance among P-401 HMA and WMA with and without RAP. RAP may be considered for airfield surface mixes with respect to the excellent rutting resistance observed during the traffic tests. Finite element analyses on the as-built pavement structures were conducted using the newly developed PANDA-AP software. Predicted tensile strains were comparable with those recorded during the traffic tests in the corresponding test sections.