Evaluation & Management

Pavement Evaluation & Management

Airport managers need methods to evaluate pavements for efficient maintenance and repair decisions. ATR research looks for ways to reduce evaluation time and improve evaluation accuracy while limiting the need to extract samples thus reducing downtime.  

Based on ATR’s research, the FAA has developed an extensive portfolio of Advisory Circulars and software for evaluating airport pavements.

ATR pavement evaluation research focuses on:

• Nondestructive testing (NDT) technologies: evaluating the existing pavement structure and predicting the remaining life of airfield pavement
• Software programs: back calculating material properties with BAKFAA
• Pavement assessment: identifying and developing methods to assess an airfield pavement’s ability to perform its functions, and to predict its ability to continue to perform its functions in the future
• Roughness research: determining methods for measuring and evaluating runway roughness, using ProFAA, to determine the point when runways become too rough to use
   

The goal is to develop a comprehensive pavement management system, PAVEAIR, that accepts information from all the evaluation programs. This will allow pavement engineers to access a large amount of airport pavement data, such as pavement condition inspections, pavement construction and maintenance history, materials, and traffic. The data will guide pavement maintenance requirements and improve safety by identifying pavement distress and optimizing maintenance and repairs. The vision for PAVEAIR is to become the pavement management software of choice for airports.

This research aligns with the Safety and Transformation goals outlined in the U.S. Department of Transportation Strategic Plan, which provides a roadmap for implementing investments in the nation’s transportation system.

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Current airport evaluation Advisory Circulars (AC):

• AC 150/5320-6: Airport Pavement Design & Evaluation  
• AC 150/5320-12C: Measurement, Construction, and Maintenance of Skid Resistant Airport Pavement Surfaces
• AC 150/5370-11B: Use of Nondestructive Testing in the Evaluation of Airport Pavement
• AC 150/5380-6C: Guidelines and Procedures for Maintenance of Airport Pavements
• AC 150/5380-7B: Airport Pavement Management Program
• AC 150/5380-9: Guidelines and Procedures for Measuring Airfield Pavement Roughness

Airport Software Programs

Technical Reports:

• Assessment of Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems for Pavement Inspections
• Airbus A333-200 Final Surface Roughness Study Data
• Boeing 737-800 Final Surface Roughness Study Data Collection
• Development of New Roughness Standards for In-Service Airport Pavement
• Method to Identify and Quantify Multiple-Event Roughness
• Practical Lessons Learned from Planning, Collecting, Processing, and Analyzing Small Unmanned Aircraft System Data for Airfield Pavement Inspection