1373391 - FAA Research Efforts to Address Sustainability at Airport Pavements

Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) Destination 2025 discusses strategies to address climate change and sustainability. Strategies include efforts toward improving scientific knowledge of environmental impacts, developing effective decision support tools, fostering research and development, and developing sustainable airport facilities. FAA’s current advisory circular AC 150/5370-10H Standard Specifications for Construction of Airports does not allow use of warm mix asphalt (WMA) and use of recycled asphalt pavement (RAP) in asphalt concrete surface mixes for airfield construction projects funded by the airport improvement program (AIP). Also, FAA decisions regarding airfield pavement infrastructure do not require using the life cycle assessment (LCA) approach for evaluating environmental impact. To increase the use of sustainable material technologies in airport pavements, research efforts are underway at FAA’s National Airport Pavement & Materials Research Center (NAPMRC) to generate performance data for recycled/sustainable materials under aircraft loading. This research will support development of standards/specifications for recycled/sustainable materials. LCA framework for airport pavements has been developed, and work is underway to develop a web based LCA tool for use by airports. This presentation will summarize FAA’s research efforts to address sustainability at airport pavements, and accelerated pavement testing to generate performance data to develop specifications for low embodied carbon materials.