Journal article
Comparison of thickness determination methods for flexible aircraft pavements
Transportation Research Procedia, Vol.99, pp.441-448
International Conference on Bearing Capacity of Roads, Railways, and Airfields (BCRRA), 12th (Ljubljana, Slovenia, 22-Jun-2026–24-Jun-2026)
2026
Abstract
Flexible aircraft pavement thickness determination is required to protect the in-situ subgrade from the high stresses caused by aircraft loads. There are several programs available to determine pavement thickness, each with their individual processes and assumptions, resulting in different thicknesses for the same aircraft loads and subgrade conditions. Two popular determination programs are the United States Department of Defense PCASE software and the United States Federal Aviation Administration FAARFIELD software. PCASE employs either the traditional CBR method or layered elastic methods, whereas FAARFIELD only uses layered elastic methods. Although the three methods are regularly used for thickness determinations, the difference in outputs for a given condition is yet to be quantified. Consequently, this research quantified the difference in pavement thicknesses for a range of flexible pavement structures, subgrade strengths and aircraft traffic, against the three determination methods. It was concluded that pavements designed by the PCASE CBR method are generally thinner than those designed by FAARFIELD, which are generally thinner than those designed by the PCASE layered elastic method. Additionally, subgrade strength and aircraft type were determined to be the most important design factors for thickness determination across all three methods, with aircraft mass, sub-base type and aircraft departures also statistically significant but of less importance.
Details
- Title
- Comparison of thickness determination methods for flexible aircraft pavements
- Authors
- Sean Jamieson - University of the Sunshine CoastTianna Theodosiou - The Univeristy of the Sunshine Coast, 90 Sippy Downs Drive, Sippy Downs, 4556, AustraliaGreg White (Corresponding Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast
- Publication details
- Transportation Research Procedia, Vol.99, pp.441-448
- Conference details
- International Conference on Bearing Capacity of Roads, Railways, and Airfields (BCRRA), 12th (Ljubljana, Slovenia, 22-Jun-2026–24-Jun-2026)
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Date published
- 2026
- DOI
- 10.1016/j.trpro.2026.07.075
- ISSN
- 2352-1465
- Copyright note
- © 2026 The Authors. Published by ELSEVIER B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0).
- Organisation Unit
- School of Science, Technology and Engineering
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 991254328102621
- Output Type
- Journal article
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