ACG was proud this year to have the opportunity to support and participate in the ICPT international conference on road and pavement technology 2021 – hosted remotely out of Colombo, Sri Lanka, and facilitated by ICTP committee members. ACG Supported two studies which were presented during the ICPT virtual conference. Below are an abstract of the presentations and research papers by Md Tofail Miah & Dr. Gary Chai.

Abstract: Runway Grooving Techniques and Exploratory Study of the Deterioration Model
Md Tofail Miah, Erwin Oh, Dr. Gary Chai and Phil Bell

Md Tofail Miah is currently a PhD student at Griffith University School of Engineering and Built Environment. Tofail Miah’s study is sponsored by the Bangladesh Government. Miah has recently presented a technical paper on a topic relating to Airport Pavement Management System at the 12th International Conference on Road and Airfield Pavement Technology held in Colombo.

Griffith universities PhD Student Mr. Tofail Miah’s abstract paper on the “Runway grooving techniques and exploratory study of the deterioration model” was supervised by ACG Staff Phil Bell and Dr. Gary Chai during his study with Griffith University’s Associate Professor Erwin Oh over the past two years.

The study conducted by Tofail focuses primarily on the methodology and development of enhanced runway grooving practice to increase the safety of aircraft during the landing phase of flight. The study aims to assess the current regulatory standards for runway grooving and the different potential distress mechanisms and issues related to groove deterioration. A brief of a predictive model requirement was developed by Tofail, which is significant for the concern for maintenance, assessment and reinstatement of the grooving in the runway for friction development.

Abstract: Comparison of Flexible Airfield Pavement Designs Using FAARFIELD v1.42 and APSDS 5.0
Dr. Gary Chai, Phil Bell, Ken McNabb and Leigh Wardle

ACG’s Dr. Gary Chai presented this year at the ICPT conference, a research paper based around a cased study comparing the design of airfield pavements for a major airport using FAARFIELD v1.42 and APSDS 5.0.

A case study has been carried out to compare the design of airfield pavements for a major airport using FAARFIELD v1.32 and APSDS 5.0. For the aircraft departure data used in the study, the pavement analysis shows that the APSDS 5.0 design method yielded pavement structure thicknesses that are nearly the same as FAARFIELD v1.32 for CBR greater than 10%.

In this paper, a comparison is carried out using FAARFIELD v1.42 to examine if the new subgrade deformation models compute the design thicknesses that are compatible with that generated by APSDS5. For the Boeing 737-800 (Code C) and 777-300ER (Code E) aircrafts spectrum and 100,000 movements analyzed in the study, the new subgrade failure models developed for the latest version of FAARFIELD generate the flexible pavement thicknesses that are not significantly difference from that of APSDS 5.0 for subgrade CBR ≥ 5%. The new failure model in FAARFIELD v1.42 produces flexible design thicknesses that differ less from APSDS 5.0 than FAARFIELD v1.32. The design thicknesses are more consistent for B737-800 with 2 wheels configuration.

The differences are observed to be larger for CBR ≤ 5% when modelled with B777-300ER having 6 wheels configuration. The differences in the design thickness are attributed to the different coefficients adopted in the subgrade failure models in the design software. It is recommended that a similar comparison be carried using a wide spectrum of aircrafts with the latest version of FAARFIELD v2.0 in next stage of the study. This will include the 4 wheels configuration on the main landing gear such as the A350-900 and B787-9 aircrafts.