AC for airport pavements

Although national specifications cover material specification and contractual requirement of AC for airport pavements, some aviation authorities provide their own standards. These particular specifications, in most of the cases, are not mandatory and they work in conjunction with the existing national specifications. 

The Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) has its own recommendation and mix design requirements on dense AC. Since it is a globally recognised authority, brief information regarding the AC mixtures proposed is given here. 

According to the FAA (2011a,c), the dense AC for surfacing course, base course, binder or levelling course is recommended to be one of the types listed in Table 5.11. 

The aggregates should consist of crushed stone, crushed gravel or crushed slag (air cooled, blast furnaced) with or without natural sand or other inert, finely divided mineral aggregate, provided they meet the requirements summarised in Table 5.12. 

The asphalt cement binder should conform to ASTM D 6373 (2007) (performance grade) or ASTM D 3381 (2012) (viscosity grade), to ASTM D 946 (2009) (AASHTO M 320 2010) 

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