Effect of space for runway roughness evaluation

ABSTRACT

This study was undertaken to develop a new index, the Airport Runway Roughness Index (ARRI), that considers the effect of runway space when evaluating airport runway roughness. The difference between roadway and runway roughness evaluations is analysed in detail and the spatial effect is considered for a proposed runway roughness evaluation model. The evaluation of runway roughness should fully account for the dynamic responses of different typical aircraft during taxiing at the most unfavourable speed for the full cross-section of the runway. ARRI is defined according to the normalised weighted average of the vibration responses of typical aircraft models at the most unfavourable excitation waveband, the most unfavourable taxiing speed, and the most unfavourable lateral offset position within the longitudinal distance of the runway. Using runway three-dimensional full-section unevenness data collection equipment, a runway roughness evaluation procedure that is based on ARRI is proposed. The ARRI system provides qualitative improvement in terms of its representation ability, the rationality of the evaluation criteria, and the correlation of the indicators.

KEYWORDS:

• Airport runway
• pavement roughness
• evaluation index
• space effect
• airport runway roughness index (ARRI)

Acknowledgements

The authors very much appreciate the help of Zhekai Zhang, Junjun Chen, Penghui Li, et al.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number U1933113] and the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation funded project [grant number 2020M681392].