Structural analysis of airfield concrete pavement with doweled joints taking into account curling of slabs

The subject of this paper is the structural analysis of a concrete airfield pavement with doweled joints after curling focusing on the doweled joints behaviour. The paper presents some examples of such pavement structures and dowel bar installation. Attention is paid to the effects of curling of slabs due to the temperature gradient across the slab thickness. It can result in the development of cracks at edges and corners of the slabs. A global structural analysis was carried out for a concrete airfield pavement exposed to extreme loading after curling. Aircraft wheel loading was considered in the analysis. The calculations of the doweled joints were parameterized based on the slab thickness and dowel diameter. The finite element method analysis was carried out using the ABAQUS/Standard software package.