Denver International Airport (DIA) Instrumented Pavement Database

Introduction

In 1992, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) initiated a major research effort to study the in-situ response and performance of Portland cement concrete (PCC) pavements. Subsequently, the FAA signed an Interagency Agreement (IA) with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Waterways Experiment Station (CEWES), to instrument several pavement slabs in the take-off area of Runway 34R at the Denver International Airport (DIA), which was under construction at the time. With the support of the DIA airport authority, the City and County of Denver, and the FAA Denver Airport District Office, a total of 460 sensors were installed in the various layers of the pavement structure. An extensive data acquisition system was put in place to control these sensors and perform data collection. Remote access was established in 1994 enabling the FAA with on-line access to the data acquisition system. A video camera was also installed next to the instrumented pavement section to provide live images. 

Automatic data collection began in 1995 and continued through 1999. Data collected during this time period include real-time pavement responses to actual aircraft traffic, environmental parameters and weather conditions. The collected data were processed and converted into engineering units for use by pavement researchers. Pavement inspections, including falling-weight-deflectometer (FWD) tests, continue to be conducted periodically and added to the database. 

This database was developed using Microsoftä SQL Server7 and is managed by the FAA Airport Technology R&D Branch. For new users, we strongly suggest that you first familiarize yourself with the database by visiting the following links: 

• Data Structuredescribes the organization of the database, including descriptions of the tables and fields. 
• Sensors describes the types of in-pavement sensors used to collect data. 
• Data Acquisition describes the methods of data collection used to populate the database.

Contact Project Lead: Dr. David Brill, ANG-E262