This booklet describes the serious contemporary issues facing airport technology and outlines an essential Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) research and development plan to deal with these issues. With the implementation of new procedures from the NextGen research, the role of airports will be to accommodate the increased traffic safely. This is especially critical during aircraft operations in inclement weather. This will require development of technologies to heat airport pavements, reliable methods to assess the braking performance of aircraft, development of lighting and marking materials providing higher visibility, development of new lighting technologies, such as, holograms, developing methods to mitigate wildlife at or near the airport, and developing new and efficient techniques for aircraft rescue and fire fighting.
The latest airport pavement design and evaluation advisory circular, AC 150/5320-6E, which includes the design procedure FAARFIELD, is considered to be suitable for thickness design for the current fleet of heavy aircraft with a high degree of confidence in the thickness computations as affected by gear configurations and wheel loads. This software tool is recognized by the international aviation community for worldwide use. Other aspects of pavement design, construction, and evaluation, such as mix design, material selection, environmental factors, maintenance, sustainability, and life-cycle description, need to be studied and procedures developed in the light of changing governmental responsibilities and fiscal regimes. In addition, we will evaluate the feasibility of extending the design life of runway pavements at major hub airports from 20 years to 40 years, with, presumably, the expectation that life extension would be required for other airport pavements if it is shown that the concept is feasible and practically achievable. We will study these aspects of airport pavement operations, starting with a discussion of how to define pavement life under these new conditions and why a more precise definition of life-cycle cost analysis is required to satisfactorily meet evolving requirements over extended periods of time.
Successfully executing the enclosed plan will reaffirm FAA’s leadership responsibilities as a key player of the aerospace industry.
For more information please contact:
Aviation Research Division
Airport Technology R&D Branch
Federal Aviation Administration Technical Center
Atlantic City International Airport, NJ 08405
Attention: Dr. Michel Hovan
Telephone: (609) 485-6179
To download the booklet, click the following link.
Airport Technology Research Plan
Format: Adobe Acrobat
File Size: 17.7MB
Upload Date: January 2012
Final Formated Edited Airport Pavement R&D Program 03-8-2013.pdf
Format: Adobe Acrobat
File Size: 1.5MB
Upload Date: May 2013