An efficient approach for NDT diagnosis of defect causes in airfield concrete pavements

Airports form a core part of the built environment serving fast and safe transportation of human beings and freights, thereby fostering economic development at both national and international levels. Maintaining resiliency in the airport pavement infrastructures is a critical task for airport stakeholders. The first and foremost action to achieve this goal is to ensure construction sufficiency. Because of their significance, airfield pavements need to be designed and constructed as high-quality and low-risk structures. In the unlike event of construction malpractices, robust decisions are needed. Nondestructive testing methods and advanced monitoring systems offer unique opportunities for a non-invasive inspection of the built structures that help airport stakeholders to draw their strategy.

This study proposes a best practice approach in the form of a diagnostic framework developed and applied for the inspection of construction problems along the concrete runway pavement of a regional airport that exhibited cracking and deterioration in the early post-construction period. Traditional coring and laboratory testing on the concrete material did not yield any considerable findings. On the contrary, the use of the Falling Weight Deflectometer (FWD) helped (i) to comparatively assess the deflectometric response of individual concrete slabs, (ii) to assess the load transfer efficiency at cracks and joints, and (iii) to estimate durability levels of each slab’ s area. The collected data from this three-pillar framework enabled a full mapping of the concrete slab condition that helped to discriminate which slabs required minor maintenance treatments and/or complete reconstruction. As such, the inclusion of nondestructive assessment methods for site investigation contributed to an optimized and cost-effective action plan for the preservation of durable and sustainable airfield structures.