The American Society of Civil Engineers’ Transportation & Development Institute (ASCE T&DI) hosted their International Airfield & Highway Pavement Conference in Austin, Texas on June 14-16, 2023. Representatives from FAA’s Airport Research & Development Branch (ATR) - Dr. David Brill, Dr. Navneet Garg, Dr. Richard Ji, and Dr. Dan Offenbacker – attended the conference and shared key FAA updates.

Presentations & Workshop Facilitation

Dr. Brill and Dr. Garg, along with Dr. Offenbacker facilitated the 8-hour workshop Airport Pavement Design and Evaluation – Introduction to FAARFIELD 2.0 and ICAO’s ACR-PCR (Aircraft Classification Rating-Pavement Classification Rating) System. FAARFIELD 2.0 (FAA Rigid and Flexible Iterative Elastic Layered Design) uses the global standard ACR-PCR method and is the FAA’s definitive software for airport pavement thickness design, evaluation, and pavement strength reporting.

The workshop spotlights FAA’s role as a global leader in aviation safety and efficiency. Thirty-eight individuals from six countries attended, including consulting engineers, representatives of government and military organizations, and academia.

In addition to the workshop, Dr. Brill delivered the presentation PCN-PCR Comparisons for Large and Medium-Hub Airport Runways and moderated the technical session Airfields – Materials, Modeling, & Design. Dr. Garg presented the session FAA Research Efforts to Address Sustainability at Airport Pavements and was a panelist in the Pavements Opening Plenary Session along with members from the Federal Highway Administration, Texas DOT, and academia.

Papers

The paper “Comparing Critical Pavement Responses in HMA and WMA (with RAP) Test Sections Measured Using Embedded Sensors under Accelerated Pavement Tests at NAPMRC” by Dr. Garg was selected for the Best Paper Award.

Additional FAA ATR papers (presented by co-authors) include:

1. “Comparing Critical Pavement Responses in HMA and WMA (with RAP) Test Sections Measured Using Embedded Sensors under Accelerated Pavement Tests at NAPMRC” by Hasan Kazmee, Navneet Garg, Lia Ricalde, Wilfredo Villafane, Daniel Offenbacker.
2. “Embedded Coil Sensors to Investigate the Deformation Behavior of Airfield Pavement Unbound Aggregate Base Courses” by Mingu Kang, Erol Tutumluer, Han Wang, Issam Qamhia, Navneet Garg, Wilfredo Villafane, Scott Murrell.
3. “Data Organization and Analysis of Flexible Pavement Test Sections at the National Airport Pavement Test Facility” by Lara Diab, Qingwen Zhou, Egemen Okte, Imad Al-Qadi, Navneet Garg.
4. “Machine Learning Solutions for Top-Down Cracking Design of Airport Rigid Pavement” by Ali Ashtiani, Tim Parsons, Thomas Paniagua, David Brill.
5. “Nondestructive Testing of Full-Scale Experimental Flexible Pavements for Fatigue Model, Base Thickness, Geosynthetics, Cement-Treated Permeable Base, and Overload Research at the FAA National Airport Pavement Test Facility” by Christopher Mazzotta, Richard Ji.
6. “The Runway Roughness Index” by Anthony Kuncas, Richard Ji.

Dr. Navneet Garg | navneet.garg@faa.gov