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National Airport Pavement Test Facility |
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Written by Administrator
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Thursday, 20 October 2005 |
The FAA operates a state-of-the-art, full-scale pavement test facility dedicated solely to airport pavement research.
Located at the William J. Hughes Technical Center near Atlantic City, New
Jersey, the National Airport Pavement Test Facility (NAPTF) provides high
quality, accelerated test data from rigid and flexible pavements subjected to
simulated aircraft traffic. Construction of the facility was completed in April
1999. Major features of the National Airport Pavement Test Facility are:
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Fully enclosed instrumented test track 900
feet long by 60 feet wide.
- Computerized data acquisition system.
- Rail-based test vehicle capable of
simulating aircraft weighing up to 1.3 million pounds.
- Twelve test wheels capable of being
configured to represent two complete landing gear trucks having one to six
wheels per truck.
- Wheel loads independently adjustable up to
75,000 pounds per wheel.
- Controlled aircraft wander simulation.
The test track can be divided into up to 9
independent test items on three subgrade classifications – low strength,
medium strength and high strength. Test items will be trafficked to failure and
then reconstructed. In this way, a variety of pavement structures can be tested,
including both rigid and flexible designs incorporating unbound aggregate and
stabilized bases. Current plans are for the test pavements to be replaced and
tested to failure on an 18-month cycle.
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