Modeling of Dowel Jointed Rigid Airfield Pavement under Thermal Gradients and Dynamic Loads

Concrete pavements have been widely used for constructing runways, taxiways, and apron areas at airports. The aviation industry has responded to increased demand for air travel by developing longer, wider, and heavier aircraft with increasing numbers of wheels to support the aircraft while in ground operation. Many researchers developed their modelsbased on the finite element method (FEM) for the analysis of jointed concrete pavement. Despite the notableimprovement, important considerations were overlooked. These simplifications may affect the results of the developedmodels and make them unrealistic. Sensitivity studies were conducted in this study to investigate the effect of the loading parameters on the load transfer efficiency (LTE) indictors where concept of LTE is fundamental in airfield design procedures. Development of the three-dimensional computational model was guided by a set of technical requirements,all of which were met in the final model with using the finite element code ABAQUS (6.13). The effect of main gearloading magnitudes in different wheel configurations combined with positive and negative thermal gradients wasinvestigated. The verification process was presented to increases the confidence in the model results. Understanding theresponse of rigid airfield pavement under such circumstances is important developing a new pavement design procedure, as well as implementing a suitable remedial measure for existing pavements. The results obtained that utilizing a dynamic load allows studying the fatigue cycles that pavement can be subjected under different wheel configurations.This allows examining the cycles of tension-compression due to wheel loading which may reduce the strength of the concrete and develop more fatigue damage than considering a static load imposed only in one direction, i.e. no stress reversal is involved. Moreover, the change in the thermal gradient from positive to negative significantly changed the slab curvature shape. The critical case in the stress was found in the combination of the wheel load and the positive thermal gradient

کلیدواژه ها:

Finite Element Modeling ، Dynamic Loads ، Thermal Gradients ، Airfield ، Jointed Concrete Pavement ، Load Transfer Efficiency