Improving safety of runway overrun through foamed concrete aircraft arresting system: an experimental study

Abstract

Aircraft may overrun the ends of runways, sometimes with disastrous consequences. Because of the capability of high energy absorption, a foamed concrete arresting system can be employed to safely decelerate and stop the overrunning aircraft. In order to evaluate the performance of the foamed concrete arrestor system, a full-scale arresting test with an instrumented Boeing 737-300 aircraft has been conducted. The test bed of 140 m long by 15 m wide and 0.32 m deep was constructed to demonstrate the effectiveness of safely stopping the Boeing 737 aircraft entering the bed at 40 knots. In the test, the deceleration experienced by the aircraft was recorded in addition to its instantaneous speed, dynamic responses of the landing gear, and rut depths. Then, the validity of the analytical prediction model developed in previous study was examined by means of the full-scale test data. The results of the full-scale test show that the foamed concrete arrestor could provide an effective deceleration without exceeding the design allowable stresses on the landing gear during arrest process. Using the analytical model, the sensitivity of aircraft stopping distance was evaluated as a function of arrestor material compressive strength, aircraft weight, and arrestor-bed thickness. Based on these investigations, it is recommended that the foamed concrete system can be used as an alternative civil aircraft arresting system to improve the runway safety.

Keywords:

• runway safety
• foamed concrete
• energy absorption
• full-scale test
• arrestor system

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Beijing Sino-Aero Airport Engineering and Technology CO., LTD for providing a Boeing 737-300 aircraft in the full-scale arresting test.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The work described in this paper is financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number 11472034]. The authors would like to gratefully acknowledge this support.