Evaluation of Asphalt Concrete Airport Pavement Conditions Based on the Airfield Pavement Condition Index (APCI) in Scope of Flight Safety

Abstract

Airoport infrastructure development requires care to maintain it in proper technical condition. Due to this, airport pavements should be constantly monitored, and, above all, correctly managed. High-level airport pavement management requires access to reliable information about their current technical condition as well as proper forecasting of this condition in the future. Obtaining good quality information about the technical condition of airport pavement should be based on a proven methodology, taking into account the introduced quality management system. The authors propose a method of technical pavement condition assessment based on the Airfield Pavement Condition Index (APCI), taking into account not only the results of the surface deterioration inventory, but also repair overviews, load bearing capacity, evenness and roughness of the surface, as well as the surface tensile bond strength. The method was developed during long-term work financed by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education. At the beginning of the article, the authors focus on reviewing the currently available methods of assessing the technical condition of the pavement. Then they briefly present the most popular surface assessment method based on the PCI indicator. Afterwards, a proprietary asphalt pavement assessment method based on the APCI indicator is proposed and an example of how to use the method is presented. Finally, they discuss the results and summarize the work done, and present further directions of work.