Airport Pavement Groove Identification and Analysis at NAPTF

Abstract:

Transverse grooves in an airport pavement allow water to be ejected from beneath the tires of an aircraft moving at high speed. It has been found that the grooves can efficiently reduce the hydroplaning potential of a pavement during wet weather. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) maintains a standard specification for groove configuration immediately after construction and during service. The National Airport Pavement Test Facility (NAPTF) performed a long period of real scale tests to investigate the performance of the current FAA standard square grooves and proposed trapezoidal grooves. This paper includes the comparison of trapezoidal and rectangular grooves under aircraft tire loading with service life. These two groove patterns were constructed on the flexible and rigid pavement respectively. In the automatic device measurement, a laser sensor from a truss profiler constantly detected the distance between the grooved surface and an initial standard line as the aircraft tires repeatedly passed through the grooved areas. An automatic groove identification program was also developed to evaluate the groove configurations. Our test results demonstrate that the trapezoidal grooves maintain a longer life shape configuration than rectangular grooves, especially for asphalt pavements.

• Periodical: Advanced Materials Research (Volume 723)
• Pages: 1003-1010
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMR.723.1003
• Online since: August 2013
• Authors: Qiang Wang, Josh Davis
• Keywords: Airport Pavement, Groove, NAPTF

References

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[4] FAA Advisory Circular, 150/5320-12C. Measurement, Construction, and Maintenance of Skid-Resistant Airport Pavement Surfaces. March 18, 1997.

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DOI: 10.3141/2369-11