CC7 North Test Objective

The objective of Perpetual Pavements is to research the Perpetual Pavement concept for airport pavements.  In the perpetual pavement concept, the pavement failure is limited to the surface layer and structural failure (rutting in subgrade, bottom-up fatigue cracking) is eliminated.

The test objectives of the full-scale perpetual test are:

a.   Develop a Perpetual Pavements Design criterion for airport pavements.

b.   Determine the vertical strain threshold in the Hot Mix Asphalt (HMA) layer to limit rutting.

c.   Determine the horizontal strain threshold at the bottom of the HMA layer to prevent bottom-up fatigue cracking.

d.   Determine the relationship between laboratory fatigue strain thresholds and measured field HMA strains.

e.   Study the strain distribution within the HMA layer.

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