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The introduction of larger aircrafts on flexible airfield pavements has led to a need for asphalt mixtures capable of sustaining such heavy loads. This laboratory and analytical study investigated the mechanical responses of a number of modified asphalt mixtures to identify their potential for use in airfield aprons and taxiways that are subjected to heavy, static or slow-moving aircraft loads. The mixtures analyzed in this study consisted of a P-401 mixture (used as baseline); a warm mix asphalt (WMA) with 35% reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) added to the aggregate portion; a SMA mixture; two HMA mixtures with two different modified binder grades (PG82-22 and PG70-22); a dense-graded asphalt (DGA) mixture; and a BRIC mixture. The airfield flexible pavement section constructed at the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) National Airport Pavement Test Facility Construction Cycle – 1 was modeled using the three-dimensional finite element analysis (FEA) software ABAQUS™.

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