PAVEMENT CRUSHED, REUSED TO STRENGTHEN RUNWAY BASE

A badly cracked pavement at Orange Municipal Airport in Orange, Massachusetts was recently reconstructed by reconstituting the existing pavement and a portion of the existing base by pulverizing and mixing them with a travelling hammer mill. The reclaimed mixture of old pavement and base was used as a stabilized base of improved gradation characteristics which was overlayed with a new bituminous concrete surface course. Cobbles (6 to 12 inches) which frost had migrated from the subgrade into the base course were also crushed during this process to a 2 inch maximum size, and no wasting of materials was necessary. This method of reconstruction was about 15 percent less expensive than removing and wasting the old pavement, upgrading the existing base with imported aggregate and paving. A thin pavement overlay would probably experience about 80 percent reflection of old underlying cracks within 3 to 5 years, and there would be no opportunity to improve the base course or relieve the frost heaving of cobles. /Author/