Selection Of The Most Cost Effective Pavement Maintenance Treatment For Selected Airport Pavements In New Mexico

Due to environmental conditions and air traffic, pavements deteriorate with age. Periodic maintenance is of utmost importance to keep them in safe operable condition. Limited studies have been reported on airport pavement maintenance strategies. Cost benefit study of various maintenance alternatives should be analyzed to make the best use of allocated budgets. New Mexico has about 50 general aviation airports with pavement condition varying from serious to good. Most of these airport pavements require immediate maintenance treatment. The current need is to determine the effectiveness of various pavement maintenance strategies for these airfields. In this study, the results of a number of crack treatments (crack sealing, patching) as well as surface treatments (slurry seal, overlay) are compared in terms of Pavement Condition Index (PCI) improvement and resulting service life enhancement. The objective of this study is to select the most cost effective treatment by performing life cycle cost analysis and to select the optimum time for its application. The analysis shows that crack sealing has greater benefit to cost ratio and lower life cycle cost than patching. Also, the critical PCI plays an important role in selecting a cost effective treatment as well as aiming a target level of service.