Predicting the Remaining Service Life of Civil Airport Runway considering Reliability and Damage Accumulation

Abstract

Based on the MEPDG method, the operation process of MEPDG was analyzed and the MEPDG correction method applied to the remaining life prediction of airport pavement was obtained. According to the theory of structural reliability, the performance function of airport pavement was obtained based on the limit state equation represented by flexural stress. Considering the characteristics of airport cement concrete pavement design, the calculation formula of the number of allowable load actions was obtained based on reliability by NCHRP126 fatigue equation without considering the temperature stress when the flexural fatigue strength of pavement plate cement concrete was less than 1.25 times of the design strength. Based on the actual situation of local civil airport runways in Henan Province, the proposed MEPDG correction method was used to analyze the flexural stress of the actual operating airport runway pavement at 95% reliability level based on the mechanical numerical model of airport runway, and the number of allowable load actions of three aircraft models was obtained. Given the impact of pass-to-coverage ratio P/C, the cumulative damage factor CDF of the major aircraft models was calculated; the annual average growth rate of different aircraft models in the airport pavement evaluation stage was obtained based on the trend extension method. According to the predicted average annual cumulative damage, the remaining life of pavement was predicted. Compared with the actual conditions of the airport, the remaining life predicted in this paper was consistent with the actual life, which verifies the effect of the prediction of the remaining life of airport runway considering the impact of reliability and damage accumulation.