Environmental load for design of airport concrete pavements

This paper presents a method for calculating the environmental load that is essential to the mechanistic design of airport concrete pavements, based on the equivalent linear temperature difference (ELTD) between the top and bottom of the slab. To assess its application, the total ELTDs at 17 airports (military and civilian) across the Korean peninsula, representing the full range of regional climates in the country, were calculated according to slab thickness. Based on the results, a multiple regression model was developed. The environmental load can be considered by simply inputting the ambient temperature, relative humidity and slab thickness into the proposed models. The results can be applied worldwide.