State of the art: Asphalt for airport pavement surfacing

Airport runways and taxiways are commonly comprised of a flexible pavement with an asphalt surface. Marshall-designed asphalt with sawn grooves is the most frequent airport asphalt surface material. However, some airports have adopted alternate asphalt mixtures for improved resistance to shear stress and for increased surface texture, allowing grooving to be avoided. Of the alternate asphalt mixtures, stone mastic asphalt is the most commonly reported. Resistance to shear stress is a critical performance requirement for airport surface asphalt. Shear stress resistance minimises the risk of rutting, shoving and groove closure. However, fracture resistance must not be ignored when developing even more shear resistance asphalt mixtures. Significant distress in airport asphalt surfaces, compliant with the traditional prescriptive specification, has increased interest in a performance-based airport asphalt specification. Commonly reported distresses include groove closure in slow moving aircraft areas and shearing in heavy aircraft braking zones. Development of reliable performance-indicative test methods is expected in the future and will enable warranted performance-based asphalt mixture design for airport surfaces.