This state-of-the-art test facility provides full-scale pavement loading data for designing airport pavements to handle the next generation of super-heavy aircraft. The foundation system is a self-supporting open box structure to resist the imposed loads. This extremely efficient foundation system design saved money and countless yards of concrete. The foundation system supports a test vehicle weighing approximately 1.1 million pounds traveling 1,140 feet back and forth and is able to resist lateral loads imposed by the test operations. Foundation retaining walls were designed and constructed so that test pavements down to the subgrade materials could be excavated and replaced in the test pit (12 feet deep, 66 feet wide, 900 feet long) as needed. The foundation is subjected to several types of loading (static, quasi-static, and dynamic), as well as maximum lateral loads experienced during emergency stops. Because the existing soil had poor resisting qualities, the foundation structure was partially buried to assist in arresting lateral forces applied by the surcharge from the pavement testing operation. In addition, the system was designed for seismic zone one. This structure is counterfort or C-shaped, cast-in-place reinforced concrete composed of the following:
- A 26-inch strip mat foundation at the base
- Fifteen-inch counterfort bearing walls, spaced on 30-foot building module intervals, supporting the pre-engineered building’s steel frame and the reinforced 16-inch main support the top slabs on each side of the pit for the test vehicle rail system
- Intermediate 15-inch counterfort bearing walls reduce the load on the span of the top main slabs on either side of the test pit and that of the test pit retaining walls, which spans as a two-way slab between the bearing walls, to slab and the foundation mat.
The National Airport Pavement Test Facility was honored by the New Jersey Society of Professional Engineers with their Outstanding Engineering Achievement Award in 2001. |
