AIRPORT ENGINEERING

A terminal facility used for aircraft takeoff and landing, and including facilities
for handling passengers and cargo and for servicing aircraft. Facilities at
airports are generally described as either airside, which commences at the secured
boundary between terminal and apron and extends to the runway and to facilities
beyond, such as navigational or remote air-traffic-control emplacements; or
landside, which includes the terminal, cargo-processing, and land-vehicle approach
facilities.
Airport design provides for convenient passenger access, efficient aircraft
operations, and conveyance of cargo and support materials. Airports provide
facilities for changing transportation modes, such as people transferring from cars
and buses to aircraft, cargo transferring from shipping containers to trucks, or
regional aircraft supplying passengers and cargo for intercontinental aircraft. In
the United States, engineers utilize standards from the Federal Aviation
Administration (FAA), aircraft performance characteristics, cost benefit analysis,
and established building codes to prepare detailed layouts of the essential airport
elements: airport site boundaries, runway layout, terminal-building configuration,
support-building locations, roadway and rail access, and supporting utility
layouts. Airport engineers constantly evaluate new mechanical and computer
technologies that might increase throughput of baggage, cargo, and passengers.

SITE SELECTION

Site selection factors vary somewhat according to whether (1) an entirely new
airport is being constructed or (2) an existing facility is being expanded. Few
metropolitan areas have large areas of relatively undeveloped acreage within
reasonable proximity to the population center to permit development of new
airports. For those airports requiring major additional airfield capacity, however,
and hence an entirely new site, the following factors must be evaluated for each
alternate site: proximity to existing highways and major utilities; demolition
requirements; contamination of air, land, and water; air-traffic constraints such
as nearby smaller airport facilities; nearby mountains; numbers of households
affected by relocation and noise; political jurisdiction; potential lost mineral or
agricultural production; and costs associated with all these factors. Some
governments have elected to create sites for new airports using ocean fills. The
exact configuration of the artifical island sites is critical due to the high
foundation costs, both for the airport proper and for the required connecting
roadway and rail bridges.