In the mean time however the construction of new airport pavements such as new
runways has to continue, although the predicted fleet-mix does include the new generation large
aircraft. Environmental issues regarding noise reduction give cause for the need of extra runways.
The uncertainty regarding the stresses developed in the pavement structure and the uncertainty in
structural pavement life has been the motive to look for alternative pavement structures less
sensitive to the combined stresses of multi-wheel landing gears. Alternative pavements in this
case are those structures needing only relatively inexpensive corrective measures to increase the
structural capacity in case of an underestimated traffic prediction or increase in frequency or
weight of the NLA generation of aircraft types.