Pavement design

ROAD ENGINEERING
2019

Presented by:
Dr Estimé Mukandila
5.3 Pavement design
Airfields
 Outline of Introduction

● Background on airfield design

● ACN-PCN method
● FAARFIELD 1.42 Design overview
 Airfield design: Background
● Airfield design is based on :
 General pavement design principles
● Although airfield pavement structural behaviour and failure
mechanisms are similar to roads, there are majors difference in
loading and performance
 Magnitude of loading up to 30 tonnes per wheel
 Configuration of the loading with up to 28 wheels in the undercarriage, with wheels
in groups of up to 8 on main wheel gear
 Tyre pressures reach:
 1.52 MPa on civil aircraft
 3.10 MPa on military aircraft
 Number of loadings generally < 1 million in the design life
 Requirement of pavement durability:
 Loose material – Foreign Object Damage (FOD) can cause catastrophic consequences for
aircraft
 Aircraft do not all follow the same path, but “Wander” about the pavement
centreline (no channelised loading)
 to account for the effect of wander, Pass Coverage concept are used
 Airfield design: Background
● Aircraft with widely differing weights and undercarriage
configuration can cause similar damage effect on
pavement
 Thus two unknowns for airfield:
 Load and load repetitions
 Whereas in road design the loads is fixed (ESA) only load repetitions varies
● This problem led airfield designer to equate ‘damaging
effects of pavement undercarriage arrangements” and “
mixed traffic analysis or cumulative damage techniques”
● damaging effects of pavement undercarriage
arrangements” can expressed as Air field –pavement
classification
 e.g. ICAO Aircraft Classification Number (ACN) and Pavement
Classification Number (PCN) method : ICAO ACN-PCN
ACN-PCN method

Adapted from presentation from Arno Hefer (June 2011)

ACN-PCN method: Outline

● Definitions: ACN and PCN

● ACN-PCN System
● ACN-PCN Concepts
● Determining ACN and PCN
● Determining PCN using ELMOD
Definitions: ACN

● Aircraft Classification Number

 A number expressing the relative effect of an aircraft at a given
weight on a pavement for a specified standard subgrade strength

 ACN is specified as a standard by ICAO in Annex 14 to the

Convention of International Civil Aviation. Aircraft manufacturers
are required to publish properly computed ACN values for all their
aircraft
Definitions: PCN

● Pavement Classification Number

 A number expressing the load carrying capacity of a pavement
for unrestricted operations

 Airport operators are responsible for determining and publishing

PCN values for their pavements
ACN-PCN System

● A pavement with a particular PCN value can support,

without weight restrictions, an airplane that has an
ACN value equal or less than the pavement’s PCN
value.

● ICAO contains procedures to allow occasional

overloads
ACN-PCN Concepts

● ACN-PCN system for rating airport pavements

designated by ICAO as the only approved method for
reporting strength
● System applicable to pavements intended for aircraft
of mass > 5700 kg
● System not intended for design or evaluation of
pavements, it is only a relative rating to enable
operators to determine permissible aircraft types/
operating masses.
ACN-PCN Concepts

● The method contemplates reporting of strength on a

continuous scale
● The same scale is used to measure the load ratings
of both aircraft and pavements
● A standard procedure exists for calculating the load
rating of aircraft (ACN)
● Airport authority can use any method of his choice to
determine the load rating of the pavement (PCN)
Determining ACN

● Arbitrarily defined as twice the Derived Single Wheel

Load (DSWL), expressed in tonnes
● DSWL: Load on a single wheel inflated to 1.25 MPa
with load that would cause damage equal to that
caused by the actual multi-wheel gear
● For standardization, ACN is calculated at 10,000
coverages
● ACN calculated using a standard technical method,
prescribed by ICAO Aerodrome Design Manual, Part
3, Pavements
Determining ACN

● Flexible Pavements: US Army Corps of Engineers

pavement thickness design method S77-1, based on
Boussinesq solution for stresses in homogenous
isotropic elastic half space. Use CBR for subgrade
strength
● Rigid Pavements: PCA method based on
Westergaard solution for a loaded elastic plate on a
Winkler foundation (interior load case) assuming
concrete working stress of 2.75 MPa). Use composite
k-value on top of support
Determining ACN

● The ‘cover’ thickness required for standard subgrade

categories is determined for the aircraft under
consideration, represented by its ESWL
● ESWL: Load on a single wheel, identical to one of the
actual aircraft wheels, that would cause damage equal
to that caused by a actual multi-wheel gear
● ESWL Based on equal deflection(F)/ stress (R) on
subgrade level/ bottom of slab, respectively.
Determining ACN
● ACN Calculation (for flexible pavements)
 Calculate reference thickness:

 where α load repetition factor (alpha factor) related to coverage of

10,000 and number of wheels on gear

 (2) Use reference thickness to determine DSWL or in

this equation, ACN directly:
Determining ACN
● Note that ICAO published updated alpha factors in
2007 (make sure your table/database includes
ACN based on updated alphas)
● Summary: ACN no more than the weight of a
standard single wheel at a standard tyre pressure
that has the same thickness requirement as the
airplane in question at an arbitrary 10,000
coverages
Determining ACN

• In practice we use:
 Nomographs (Aircraft manufacturers)
 Tables:
 - Airport Directory Section of Jeppesen flight manual books, and
 Airplane Characteristics for Airport Planning manuals published by
major manufacturers
 Aerodrome Design Manual, Annex 14, Attach B
 (3) Software – Original Fortran code (ICAO, Aerodrome Manual,
Part 3, Appendix 2), COMFAA 3.0 (latest using 2007 alpha
factors)
Tabulated ACN

● Flexible pavements at MTOW and OEW for

subgrade categories: CBR = 3, 6, 10, and 15 %

● Rigid pavements at MTOW and OEW for

subgrade categories: k = 20, 40, 80, 150 MPa/m
Determining PCN

● Experience (‘Using Aircraft Method’)

 Find the ACN of all aircraft regularly using the pavement and
select the largest ACN to be the PCN of the pavement

● Technical Method
 No method specified
 ICAO manual covers broad range of methods
 Generally, PCN determined as an extension of existing national
pavement design concepts and evaluation technologies
Determining PCN

● Technical Method
 (1) Select PCN pavement life
 (2) Determine aircraft traffic over life
 Convert traffic into critical aircraft equivalent departures
 Determine pavement characteristics
 Calculate maximum allowable gross weight of the critical aircraft on the
pavement
 Look up or calculate the ACN of the critical aircraft at this maximum allowable
weight
 Assign the PCN to be the ACN of the critical aircraft at the allowable weight
PCN Reporting

PCN Pavement Subgrade Tyre Evaluation

Type Category Pressure Method
Value R – Rigid A – High W – No Limit U – Using Aircraft
F - Flexible B – Medium X – to 1.5 MPa T – Technical
C – Low Y – to 1.0 MPa
D – Ultra Low Z – to 0.5 MPa

Example:
45/F/B/X/T
Determining PCN using ELMOD

● Technical method falls into category:

● Non-destructive testing with backcalculation
● PCN is calculated at each FWD test point
● Three steps:
 Backcalculate layer moduli
 Adjust moduli for seasonal effects (if considered)
 Calculate Derived Single Wheel Load (DSWL) that corresponds with
failure criterion for the subgrade at specified number of load
repetitions and convert to ACN (i.e. ACN = 2 x DSWL in tonnes)
Determining PCN using ELMOD

● The ELMOD PCN Calculation:

● Two standard parameter setup’s are supplied with
the software:
 SI_PCN-Flex for flexible pavements
 SI_PCN-Rigid for rigid pavements
● Claimed that setup’s are constructed to meet the
ICAO definitions and guidelines in the best possible
way
Determining PCN using ELMOD

● Considerations regarding these setups are:

 SI_PCN-Flex only uses subgrade stress criterion
 SI_PCN-Rigid only uses stress at bottom of PCC
 Load configurations are not used with the PCN calculations
(Unrestricted number of loads input is for the critical aircraft!)
 Seasonal setups and temperature sensitivity can be modified
according to specific conditions
Determining PCN using ELMOD

● Statement on Subgrade Stress Criterion

 “The permissible stress on the subgrade would be 0.266 MPa

if the subgrade had a modulus of 160 MPa and was subjected
to 10,000 load repetitions. This criterion corresponds roughly
to the CBR criterion used in determination of ACN.”
 Determining PCN using ELMOD

● Calculation of the PCN

 A single uniformly distributed circular load with some load assumed for
the first iteration. Tyre pressure of 1.25 MPa (definition of ACN DSWL)
 The number of allowable repetitions determined according to the failure
criterion.
 Compared to unrestricted coverages
 Adjust load accordingly until failure criterion satisfied
 Final load = DSWL and ACN = 2xDESWL (tonnes)
FAARFIELD 1.42 Design overview

Extracted from presentation from Navneet Garg (June 2018)

FAARFIELD –What Is It?

● FAARFIELD is the standard

Federal FAA airport Pavement
Aviation thickness design program
Administration
● FAARFIELD design
Rigid and procedure for:
Flexible  Flexible
Iterative  Rigid
 Overlay
Elastic ● Current version is
Layered FAARFIELD 1.42 (posted
Design 18 Sep 2017)

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Mechanistic-Empirical Design

Structural Failure
Traffic Model
Model Model
(Statistical)
(Mechanistic) (Empirical)

Federal Aviation 5
Administration
Key Concepts in FAARFIELD

● Layered Elastic Analysis

● Wander
● Pass/Coverage Ratio (P/C)
● Miner’s Rule (linear summation of damage)
● Cumulative Damage Factor (CDF)

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Structural Models in FAARFIELD
● Both layered elastic (LEAF) and
3D-FEM (NIKE3D) are used in
2a
FAARFIELD.
q
● Flexible pavement design
E1, 1 h1
 LEAF is used for all tructural E2, 2 h2
computation E3, 3

 For flexible, no advantage to

using 3D-FEM
● Rigid pavement design
 LEAF is used to generate a
preliminary thickness.
 Final iterations are done
using a 3D finite element
model (3D-FEM) 7
Pass/Coverage Ratio Concept
● Coverage= application of the maximum stress or strain at a
point on the pavement.

● Pass/Coverage Ratio = the number of aircraft passes

resulting in one coverage on a given strip

● Wander= the width over which the centreline of the aircraft

is distributed 75% of the time.

Federal Aviation 8
Administration
 P/C Ratio in FAARFIELD
● Assume tire has a normal lateral Centerline
distribution with wander width =
1.78 m (70 in.). PAVEMENT STRIP WIDTH w

● The probability that, for a given

pass, any part of the effective tyre
width covers point P, is defined as
the coverage/pass ratio (C/P) for
point P
P
● P/C is the reciprocal of C/P
● On a pavement strip of with w, P is
the centre point of the strip, and we
define P/C as applying to the
whole strip EFFECTIVE TIRE WIDTH

Federal Aviation 9
Administration
 Cumulative Damage Factor (CDF)
● Sums the damage contributed from each aircraft -not
from equivalent aircraft.
● CDF = (ni /Ni), where:
– ni = actual passes of individual aircraft i
– Ni = allowable passes of individual aircraft i
● When CDF = 1, design life is exhausted.
● In FAARFIELD:
 The gear location and wander are considered
separately for each aircraft in the total mix.
 CDF is calculated for each 25.4 cm (10 inch) wide
strip over a total 20.83m (820 inch) width
 Use Miner’s rule to sum damage for each strip
● Important: Input the fleet mix, NOT equivalent departures of design aircraft.
 Cumulative Damage Factor (CDF)

Difference in Gear
Location

Damage from Damage from

Airplane A Airplane B
CDF

25.4 cm (10 in.)

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 Cumulative Damage Factor (CDF)

25.4 cm (10 in.) Total Damage

Damage from Damage from

Airplane A Airplane B
CDF

Federal Aviation 12
Administration
Large Airplane Traffic Mix Gear Locations

B-777-200
B-747-400
A-330
B-767-200
A-300-B2
B-757
B-727
B-737-400
MD-83
MD-90-30
DC-9-50
DW 100,000
Regional Jet 700
Regional Jet 200
DW 45,000
DW 30,000
SW 30,000

0 25 50 75 100 125 150 175 200 225 250 275 300 325 350 375 400
Distance From Centerline (in)

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FAARFIELD –CDF Graphical Display

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 Failure Models in FAARFIELD
● This is the “empirical” part of Flexible Subgrade Failure Model

mechanistic-empirical.
 Derived from full-scale traffic
tests at NAPTF.
 Relates strain or stress to
allowable coverages (fatigue).
 Tied to CDF through P/C ratio.
● Flexible: Function of maximum Rigid “First Crack” Failure Model

vertical strain at the top of the

subgrade/
● Rigid: Function of maximum
horizontal stress in the concrete
slab
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FAARFIELD Final Design for Flexible Pavement

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FAARFIELD Design Output of Flexible Pavement

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FAARFIELD Final Design for Rigid Pavement

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FAARFIELD Design Output of Rigid Pavement

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Example

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