FAA William J. Hughes Technical Center, AJP-6312. 

FEAFAA Version 1.42 (September 24, 2009)

FEAFAA (Finite Element Analysis - FAA) was developed by the FAA Airport Technology R&D Branch as a stand-alone tool for 3D finite element analysis of multiple-slab rigid airport pavements and overlays. It is useful for computing accurate responses (stresses, strains and deflections) of rigid pavement structures to individual aircraft landing gear loads. The FAA does not officially support the program as a standard nor sanction any use of the results. A help file is included which gives brief information on the capabilities of the program and how to use the various features. It would probably be useful to print the help file for reference as there is currently no other documentation describing operation of the program. English units are used throughout, so the finite element output data should be interpreted in terms of English units (length in inches, stresses in psi, etc.). 

We would appreciate any comments you may have on the program with regard to errors, features that don't work properly, features that could be added, etc. Please send comments to David.Brill@faa,gov. FEAFAA 1.42 is not an official FAA standard, specification or regulation.

Minimum requirements to run FEAFAA 1.42 are a PC with Windows 2000 or higher, and a minimum of 256 megabytes of RAM. However, Windows XP or higher with at least 512 MB of RAM is recommended for best performance. Users running Windows 2000 Professional may need to install Service Pack 4.

The download includes a utility program called NIKEPLOT, which is useful for postprocessing the 3D finite element output data (which can be voluminous). To use NikePlot, make sure that the Nike3D generated output file n3dhsp is in the same folder as file NIKEPLOT1-5.exe. Click on NIKEPLOT1-5 and a DOS window will appear. Respond to ant prompts from the program. NIKEPLOT generates ASCII (text) files called model_load.dat and model_stress_x.dat that can be read or converted by commercial 3D-FEM postprocessing programs such as TecPlot. NIKEPLOT is provided as a convenience to the user and the FAA makes no representation as to its accuracy. The FAA does not officially support the program as a standard nor sanction any use of the results.