Suitability of Runway Pavement Roughness Indices in Capturing Aircraft Response

This paper presents an analysis of the interaction between aircraft responses and runway pavement roughness. It utilizes the ProFAA software for computing runway pavement statistics and the aircraft simulation model APRas© to simulate the dynamic response of a B737 aircraft. The conventional roughnes indices considered include the International Roughens Index (IRI), the Ride Number (RN), the Profile Index (PI), the Straightedge (SE) index the Boeing Bump Index (BBI) and the Root Mean Square Band-Pass (RMS BP) filter. In addition, the Normalized Energy (NE) of the pavement profile was computed as an alternative pavement roughness indicator. The aircraft responses considered included the Center of Gravity Acceleration (CGA), the Pilot Station Acceleration (PSA), the Nose Gear Pavement Loading (NGPL) and the main Gear Pavement Loading (MGPL). The analysis was carried out through the wavelet approach and summarized in terms of their NE values. Pearson correlation coefficients were developed between runway roughness statics and aircraft response statistics. The conventional pavement roughness statistics, with the exception of the PI and the profile roughness NE, were shown unsuitable to describe overall and peak aircraft responses over the full length of runway pavements analyzed. Over shorter runway lengths, such as the 250 m sub-sections analyzed, the profile NE seemed best suited to describe overall aircraft responses, while the IRI seemed best suited to describe peak aircraft responses.

• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Woods, Jessica
  • Papagiannakis, A Thomas
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 88th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2009-1-11 to 2009-1-15
• Date: 2009

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: DVD
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 20p
• Monograph Title: TRB 88th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers DVD

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Aircraft; Aircraft operations; Aircraft pilotage; Airport runways; Pavement management systems; Simulation
• Identifier Terms: International Roughness Index; Pavement Loading Guide (Computer program)
• Uncontrolled Terms: Pavement loads; Ride Number
• Subject Areas: Aviation; Pavements; I22: Design of Pavements, Railways and Guideways;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01125411
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 09-0558
• Files: TRIS, TRB
• Created Date: Mar 30 2009 1:36PM