Texture of airport pavements in terms of their drainage efficiency

Abstract: Characteristics of the drainage of the surface movement area of airports, and more precisely the rapid drainage of water from the surface, is the main safety factor taken into account at the stage of designing, building, and maintaining the movement area and adjacent areas. Drainage of water from the pavement is a basic requirement and serves to reduce the thickness of the water layer on the surface. Adequate drainage is ensured primarily by surfaces with a suitable slope, both longitudinally and transversely (natural water drainage). On the other hand, dynamic drainage is achieved through the texture of the pavement. The paper presents the results of research on the texture of airport pavements and their analysis in relation to the current requirements. In the tests, apart from the currently used point measurement method, an innovative method of assessing anti-skid properties was used, which allowed for the simultaneous measurement of the friction coefficient µ and a new coefficient of continuous mean profile depth and CMPTD texture. The obtained results allowed us to present conclusions that when assessing the texture of airport pavements and thus designing structural solutions in terms of their drainage, it is reasonable to take into account the technology of its implementation (cement concrete or asphalt concrete). Keywords: Drainage of airport pavements; Texture of airport pavements; Safety of air operations