Recently,airport maintenance cost,especially asphalt pavement maintenance cost has gradually increased due to severe damages induced by heavy traffics. To reduce the rehabilitation work and cost, the use of large stone asphalt mixture is expected to be adopted to the pavement for runways and taxiways, because of its high rutting durability and its less expensive execution cost. However, so far the mixture has been used only as the base layer and/or the subbase layer materials instead of the surface layer material. This is because the raveling and crack characteristics are not thoroughly clarified. The severe raveling and crack damages also prevent airplanes from running safely on runways and taxiways. Therefore, the characteristics in addition to the rutting durability of the largestone asphalt mixture should be investigated in detail to establish the appropriate mixing design.
　In view of the mentioned above, a series of laboratory tests was conducted on the large stone asphalt mixture. The tests were also carried out on the conventional asphalt mixture. Based on the test results, this paper focuses the effects of amount of air void in the large asphalt mixture on the bending strength/deformation, the raveling and the asphalt deterioration characteristics. It is found that there are suitable ranges of amount of air void for required bending and raveling resistance. Then the paper also suggests that simple and rational mixing design of the large stone asphalt mixture applied for the surface layer as well as for the subbase layer.