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Journal article
Analysis of the Opportunities, Benefits and Risks Associated with the Use of Recycled Materials in Flexible Aircraft Pavements
Materials, Vol.18(13), pp.1-26
2025
Abstract
International waste policy promotes the reduction and re-use of waste materials, and in some cases, specifically calls for the use of recycled materials in pavements. In countries like Australia, most of the aircraft pavement network is constructed of flexible pavements. Consequently, understanding the opportunities for recycled materials in flexible aircraft pavements is paramount to increasing the technology uptake. This paper reviews opportunities for the incorporation of recycled materials in flexible airport pavement construction, specifically, their application to particle substitution in unbound and asphaltic layers, use in stabilization treatments, and use as a bitumen modifier. Additionally, environmental product declarations are reviewed to provide a range of typical environmental costs for each recycled material when considering material processing for incorporation into flexible pavements. These materials are compared to virgin material environmental costs to determine which recycled materials provide the highest environmental benefit potential. It was concluded that particle replacement in unbound layers with waste materials had a similar environmental cost to using virgin materials. However, the requirement to dispose of waste material to the landfill can be significantly reduced. For asphaltic layers, recycled asphalt pavement as an asphalt mixture replacement, fly ash as a hydrated lime replacement, and waste plastic and crumbed rubber as a virgin polymer replacement all are effective in reducing the environmental cost. To further increase the technology uptake, a risk-based approach for the implementation of waste materials in airport flexible pavements is recommended, which considers performance testing, the depth of the pavement layer, and the pavement functional area.
Details
- Title
- Analysis of the Opportunities, Benefits and Risks Associated with the Use of Recycled Materials in Flexible Aircraft Pavements
- Authors
- Sean Jamieson - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Science, Technology and EngineeringLuke Verstraten - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Science, Technology and EngineeringGreg White (Corresponding Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Science, Technology and Engineering
- Publication details
- Materials, Vol.18(13), pp.1-26
- Publisher
- MDPI AG
- Date published
- 2025
- DOI
- 10.3390/ma18133036
- ISSN
- 1996-1944
- Copyright note
- © 2025 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
- Data Availability
- No new data were created or analyzed in this study.
- Organisation Unit
- School of Science, Technology and Engineering; Sustainability Research Cluster
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 991140388202621
- Output Type
- Journal article
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