RAPID IN-SITU SHEAR TESTING OF ASPHALT PAVEMENTS FOR RUNWAY CONSTRUCTION QUALITY CONTROL AND ASSURANCE By:

In Canada, almost all airport runways have been constructed or rehabilitated with hot mix asphalt concrete based on cost, performance and speed of construction considerations. As with highway pavements, permanent deformation through heavy (aircraft) traffic then becomes a major concern to airport authorities, who cannot afford premature failure of runway pavements. In cooperation with the United States Transportation Research Board and the Ontario Ministry of Transportation, researchers at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada have developed the In-Situ Shear Stiffness Test (InSiSST ™ ) – a new test facility for measuring shear properties of compacted asphalt concrete layers in the field. The ability to rapidly measure in-situ pavement properties immediately after construction is particularly beneficial to airport applications, as the runway may be re-opened to aircraft quickly, with confidence that the pavement will perform as expected. A brief introduction to the InSiSST ™ facility is provided, however, the primary objective of this paper is to present the results of laboratory and field testing with InSiSST ™ to develop a quality control and assurance test based on fundamental shear properties. To date, these result