Comparison of methods for evaluating airport pavement roughness

Abstract

The correct and timely assessment of the airport pavements surface quality is fundamental to verify the presence of any irregularities that could be detrimental to aircraft operations. Furthermore, a rough runway can increase the maintenance costs of both pavements and aircrafts landing gears, due to the increment of dynamic loads and fatigue phenomena on airplanes structural elements, reducing their service life. Nowadays, the maintenance budget available by airport agencies is very restricted, thus, it is necessary to define properly the type and the extension of interventions able to restore runway evenness. In this paper, the roughness assessment of real runway profiles is carried out using first of all BBI and IRI but also ProFAA simulation model, with particular attention to Cockpit Vertical Accelerations, underling the different impact on airport pavement management of the results provided by them. In particular, very low correlations for the whole sample of examined profiles were found between IRI and BBI (R2 = 0.11) and between IRI and cockpit vertical acceleration (R2 = 0.03), while a better correlation was obtained between BBI and cockpit vertical acceleration (R2 = 0.59). Neglecting runway profiles characterised by long wavelengths roughness, a very high correlation between IRI and BBI (R2 = 0.91) was found, that underlines their different sensitivity to long wavelengths. In particular, it was found that for roughness characterised by low wavelengths, the IRI method seems to be more conservative than BBI. In addition, two different IRI acceptance thresholds were taken into account, one used in South Africa (2 m/km) and one adopted in Canada (2.7 m/km). For the whole profiles sample, little differences were found in their runway sections evaluation (about 4%) compared to BBI method; while, considering the reduced sample where profiles characterised by long wavelengths roughness were excluded, the use of IRI limit of 2 m/km would seem to be too conservative

Can Machine Learning and PS-InSAR Reliably Stand in for Road Profilometric Surveys?

“…In the literature, there are dozens of studies completed on the use of laser profilometric measurements and related IRI calculations. Airport runways [ 50 , 51 ] as well as flexible [ 52 , 53 , 54 , 55 ], rigid [ 53 ], and composite pavements [ 52 , 53 ] have been analyzed. In general, in these studies, structural data of road pavements or surface distresses are correlated with IRI, with a common purpose of developing helpful regression models for infrastructure management and maintenance.…”

Runway Width Design Based on Wheel Trace Distribution Test

“…As an aircraft rolling speed is much larger than that of an automobile, this method has a remarkably high specifications requirement for a camera, which increases the system cost, which is not suitable for A large number of lay [24]. The piezoelectric method has a low cost and high measurement accuracy, but has to bury the sensor beneath the runway pavement [25], which is hard to implement and maintenance. In comparison, laser telemetry has advantages of high maneuverability, high measurement accuracy, stability, and moderate costs [26].…”

Jointed Plain Concrete Pavements in Airports: Structural–Economic Evaluation and Proposal for a Catalogue

“…The large experience of the IAF has helped to collect data on design, construction, and maintenance of runways over more than 80 years. With regard to concrete pavements, Jointed Plain Concrete Pavements (JPCP) without dowel and tie bars are the most frequent solution because of simple and rapid execution, lower cost than other concrete solutions (the presence of bars involves an increase in expenditure varying from 8% to 20%, while a continuous reinforcement involves a higher initial expense of 50% or more) [6], good monitored performances [7][8][9][10][11], and simple maintenance works [12,13], the latter with potential applications to other facilities, where regular maintenance might lag behind [14][15][16]. The absence of reinforcement requires a double foundation layer: a bottom one composed of a granular mixture and a top one composed of a cement-stabilized mixture.…”