Effect of joint type on rigid airfield pavement behavior

The effects of dowel and key joints in the rigid airfield pavements on the stress distribution in the concrete slab and on the Load Transfer Efficiency (LTE) at joints were investigated in this study. Numerical analysis models including dowel and key joints of the rigid airfield pavements were developed to analyze behaviors under environmental and aircraft gear loads. The analysis results showed that under gear loads both the dowel and key joint pavement slabs had very similar stress distributions when the joint gap did not exist, but the key joint pavement slab had larger stresses than dowel joint one when the joint gap existed and the loads were applied near the joint. The LTEs at joints were excellent at both pavement slabs without a joint gap, but the LTE decreased significantly in the key joint pavement as the joint gap became larger. Under environmental loads, the stresses at both the dowel and key joint pavement slabs were almost the same and those increased slightly when there was a joint gap. When the rigid airfield pavement had only the dowel joints along both the longitudinal and transverse joints, there was no stress concentration in the slabs and the stresses were smaller and the LTEs were higher than the pavement that had the dowel joints along one direction and the key joints along the other direction, which was the current airfield pavement joint design in Korea. Keywords: rigid airfield pavement, dowel joint, environmental load, gear load, jointed concrete