7 Oct 2024

Full-Scale Evaluation of Saltwater Concrete for Airfield Pavement Construction and Repair

Abstract: The US Navy has a need to rapidly construct concrete facilities onshore to support contingency operations. Mixing water for concrete is typically specified to be freshwater; however, in many scenarios there are limited amounts of freshwater available for construction. Thus, use of readily available saltwater would be advantageous. This project’s objective was to evaluate the suitability of saltwater as a replacement for freshwater for producing concrete airfield pavement under relevant operational scenarios. Three full-scale test sections were constructed, and performance was evaluated in the context of relatively short design life requirements. First, direct comparison slabs of freshwater and saltwater concrete were constructed and exposed to ambient environmental conditions for one year; periodic concrete strength measurements were made. Next, 8 in. thick and 11 in. thick saltwater concrete pavements were constructed then subjected to P-8 aircraft accelerated loading. Finally, four airfield damage repair techniques were executed using saltwater and subjected to accelerated P-8 aircraft loading. Saltwater concrete performance was found to be similar to freshwater concrete for all scenarios investigated. The overall conclusion was that saltwater can be used in place of freshwater for concrete airfield pavement construction and repair for short- to medium-term use (1–2 yr) with no meaningful impact to mission requirements.

6 Apr 2023

Naval Expeditionary Runway Construction Criteria: P-8 Poseidon Pavement Requirements

Abstract: A full-scale airfield pavement test section was constructed and trafficked by the US Army Engineer Research and Development Center to determine minimum rigid and flexible pavement thickness requirements to support contingency operations of the P-8 Poseidon aircraft. Additionally, airfield damage repair solutions were tested to evaluate the compatibility of those solutions with the P-8 Poseidon. The test items consisted of various material thickness and strengths to yield a range of operations to failure allowing development of performance predictions at a relatively lower number of design operations than are considered in traditional sustainment pavement design scenarios. Test items were trafficked with a dual-wheel P-8 test gear on a heavy-vehicle simulator. Flexible pavement rutting, rigid pavement cracking and spalling, instrumentation response, and falling-weight deflectometer data were monitored at select traffic intervals. The results of the trafficking tests indicated that existing design predictions were generally overconservative. Thus, minimum pavement layer thickness recommendations were made to support a minimum level of contingency operations. The results of full-scale flexible pavement experiment were utilized to support an analytical modeling effort to extend flexible pavement thickness recommendations beyond those evaluated.