Theses and Dissertations

ORCID

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0024-5043

Advisor

Freyne, Seamus F.

Committee Member

Strawderman, Lesley

Committee Member

Wang, Jun

Committee Member

Stache, Jeremiah M.

Date of Degree

5-10-2024

Original embargo terms

Immediate Worldwide Access

Document Type

Dissertation - Open Access

Major

Civil Engineering

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D)

College

James Worth Bagley College of Engineering

Department

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Abstract

The Federal Aviation Administration proposed a new concept for measuring airport pavement condition that consolidates measures of Foreign Object Damage (FOD), skid resistance, and smoothness into a single number. This research verified that FOD, skid resistance, and smoothness are necessary and sufficient to completely describe airport pavement serviceability and proposed a mathematical framework to reduce these properties to a single number describing the serviceability of the pavement. Serviceability was defined as “meeting the expectations of the user.” An extensive review of standards, regulations, and research indicated these components are each an expectation of the various types of airport pavement user. This review did not identify any other user expectations, indicating that these are the only components to airport pavement serviceability and thus are both necessary and sufficient. The research developed a framework called Serviceability Level (SL) to combine the components into a single index based on the probability of the pavement being FOD-free, skid resistant, and smooth. The framework allows measuring and forecasting each component separately, which should improve the accuracy of pavement management models and result in more efficient use of limited infrastructure resources. The probabilistic nature of SL gives it a real-world meaning and allows integration of pavement condition into risk management systems and general airport asset management systems.

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