Capping Material for Compacted Runway Crater Repairs

Adequate airfield facilities are critical for successful operation of the US Air Force, and rapid recovery of flight operation is imperative when the runway has been damaged. The US Air Force has invested significant resources into a rapid airfield damage recovery (RADR) sequence that restores the substructure and surface of runway craters, but the capping materials evaluated in the field, including calcium sulfoaluminate cements and various polymer concretes, have not satisfied the performance metrics for rapid recovery. Each material has failed to meet at least one of the performance requirements due to issues associated with short working lifetimes, extended cure times, premature structural failure, or temperature/environmental instability. The problems plaguing these commercially available rapid-set materials preclude their use in the Air Force repair sequence. There is therefore a need for an alternative capping material that can be rapidly cured while still maintaining a long working life for practical site application and prompt airfield recovery. To address this need, Luna has developed a novel epoxy binder that features a non-toxic rapid-setting technology with a long, tunable working life. Unlike the extremely short working times (< 15 minutes) of commercially available polymer concretes, Luna’s innovative epoxy concrete exhibits a 3-hour working life with a rapid-setting cure-on-demand technology that results in an extremely durable capping material for prompt runway recovery.