Review and Improvement of Runway Friction and Aircraft Skid Resistance Regulation, Assessment and Management

Gadel Baimukhametov; Greg White

doi:10.3390/app15020548

Back

Review and Improvement of Runway Friction and Aircraft Skid Resistance Regulation, Assessment and Management

Journal article

Open access

Peer reviewed

Review and Improvement of Runway Friction and Aircraft Skid Resistance Regulation, Assessment and Management

Gadel Baimukhametov and Greg White

Applied Sciences, Vol.15(2), pp.1-60

2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/app15020548

Files and links (2)

pdf

applsci-15-00548-v216.09 MBDownload View

Published VersionCC BY V4.0, Open Access

url

https://doi.org/10.3390/app15020548View

Published Version

Abstract

friction

skid resistance

runway excursion

texture

microtexture

macrotexture

runways

standartisation

Runway skid resistance is crucial for the safety of aircrafts. Despite being internationally regulated, investigation reports published by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau and the US National Transportation Safety Board indicate that 4.9–22% of runway excursion accidents are related to insufficient friction, or to friction overestimation. Consequently, based on this review of friction physics, aircraft accident reports, international runway surface regulation, and aircraft braking performance regulation, it was concluded that significant improvement in the management of runway surface characteristics can be achieved. Areas for potential improvement in the current systems for aircraft skid resistance include gaps in the operational reporting of prevailing runway contamination, as well as friction and surface texture measurement and interpretation protocols. Furthermore, aircraft braking performance regulations are not related to actual runway surface friction levels, resulting in reportedly good runways being found to provide inadequate aircraft skid resistance in certain conditions. Recommendations include improvements in the management of runway friction and texture measurement and analysis during pavement design, and through the service life of the pavement surfaces. Finally, the basis of an improved international runway surface engineering design and management system is outlined. Recommendations can reduce the risk of aircraft skidding accidents in the future.

Details

Title: Review and Improvement of Runway Friction and Aircraft Skid Resistance Regulation, Assessment and Management
Authors: Gadel Baimukhametov - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Science, Technology and Engineering
Greg White (Corresponding Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Science, Technology and Engineering
Publication details: Applied Sciences, Vol.15(2), pp.1-60
Publisher: MDPI AG
Date published: 2025
DOI: 10.3390/app15020548
ISSN: 2076-3417
Copyright note: © 2025 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Data Availability: The products presented in this article are available on request from the corresponding author.
Grant note: This research was funded by the Airport Pavement Research Program.
Organisation Unit: School of Science, Technology and Engineering
Language: English
Record Identifier: 991094097402621
Output Type: Journal article

Metrics

24 Record Views

3 Times Cited - Web of Science

InCites Highlights

These are selected metrics from InCites Benchmarking & Analytics tool, related to this output

Web Of Science research areas: Chemistry, Multidisciplinary; Engineering, Multidisciplinary; Materials Science, Multidisciplinary; Physics, Applied