Abstract: The deflection basin area index methods of different forms lack systematic analysis and reliability verification based on actual engineering. This paper conducted deflection tests on rigid pavements of 5 airports in different regions of China, and analyzed the reaction modulus of the top surface of rigid pavements base of 5 airports using three common domestic deflection basin area index methods. The analysis results show that the reaction modulus of the top surface of the base obtained by the area index method with central deflection value is 14%-45% and 9%-75% higher than the value obtained by the improved area index method with central deflection value, and accords with the area index method without central deflection value. Among the 5 airports, the reaction modulus of the top surface of base obtained by the area index method with central deflection value is completely consistent with the pavement classification number(PCN) value announced by the five case airports, and is more reliable than the other two methods. The reason is that the area index method without central deflection can effectively avoid errors caused by the no -squeeze assumption in thin plate theory. The analysis results will provide references for the analysis of airport rigid pavement structure performance.

Key words: rigid pavement, heavy weight deflectometer (HWD) test, deflection basin area index method, the reaction modulus of base top surface, no-squeeze assumption