The effects of dowel and key joints in the rigid airfield pavements on the stress distribution in the concrete slab and on the Load
Transfer Efficiency (LTE) at joints were investigated in this study. Numerical analysis models including dowel and key joints of the
rigid airfield pavements were developed to analyze behaviors under environmental and aircraft gear loads. The analysis results
showed that under gear loads both the dowel and key joint pavement slabs had very similar stress distributions when the joint gap did
not exist, but the key joint pavement slab had larger stresses than dowel joint one when the joint gap existed and the loads were
applied near the joint. The LTEs at joints were excellent at both pavement slabs without a joint gap, but the LTE decreased
significantly in the key joint pavement as the joint gap became larger. Under environmental loads, the stresses at both the dowel and
key joint pavement slabs were almost the same and those increased slightly when there was a joint gap. When the rigid airfield
pavement had only the dowel joints along both the longitudinal and transverse joints, there was no stress concentration in the slabs
and the stresses were smaller and the LTEs were higher than the pavement that had the dowel joints along one direction and the key
joints along the other direction, which was the current airfield pavement joint design in Korea.