Analysis of aircraft skidding potential on rapid exit taxiways

ABSTRACT

A critical input parameter in the design and safety analysis is the available skid resistance of rapid exit taxiway (RET) pavements in wet weather. Unfortunately, currently due to the lack of suitable analytical and physical measurement tools, the real skid resistance available under different aircraft operating conditions cannot be easily determined. In practice, RETs are designed with standard geometric dimensions based on design aircraft types and speeds. A shortcoming of this practice is that the safety margin against skidding or the risk of skidding is unknown. This study presents a mechanistic procedure to determine the skidding potential of an arriving aircraft exiting a runway via a RET. The key aspect of the procedure is the determination of the wet-weather pavement skid resistance value under the influence of the following factors: properties of pavement surface material, RET geometry, aircraft load and speed, aircraft tire properties, and thickness of water film on pavement surface. It involves the application of a finite element simulation model to solve the dynamic interaction among tire, water and pavement. The development and validation of the model, as well as numerical illustrative examples are presented.

KEYWORDS:

• High-speed exit taxiway
• rapid exit taxiway
• skid resistance
• skidding potential
• aircraft exit speed
• turn-off radius

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, China. Project No. 300102219307.