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Review and improvement of FAARFIELD software for thickness design in the Australian context
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Review and improvement of FAARFIELD software for thickness design in the Australian context

Brendan Bennett and Greg White
Transportation Research Procedia , Vol.99, pp.343-350
International Conference on Bearing Capacity of Roads, Railways, and Airfields (BCRRA), 12th (Ljubljana, Slovenia, 22-Jun-2026–24-Jun-2026)
2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trpro.2026.07.063
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Review and improvement of FAARFIELD software for thickness design in the Australian context565.34 kBDownloadView
Published Version Open Access CC BY-NC-ND V4.0

Abstract

airfield pavement Australian practice FAARFIELD thickness design
Contemporary pavement thickness determination is mechanistic-empirical in nature, and generally uses software-based layered elastic or finite element methods for the calculation of critical stresses or strains, at critical location within the pavement structure. For aircraft pavement thickness determination, FAARFIELD, developed and published by the Federal Aviation Administration of the USA, is arguably the most commonly used software. While FAARFIELD is technically robust and widely adopted, its design assumptions, material libraries, and modelling protocols are based on U.S. standards, which differ significantly from Australian practices. Key limitations of FAARFIELD, in the Australian context, include the inability to model thin asphalt surfacing and spray seals, the lack of support for foamed bitumen and lightly bound materials, fixed modulus and fatigue criteria, and minimum layer thickness constraints. FAARFIELD also does not adequately support lighter aircraft or regional pavement configurations common in Australia. To address these gaps, it is recommended that FAARFIELD be expanded to include alternate pavement types and materials, enabling temperature-dependent modulus inputs, integrating strain-based fatigue models, improving visibility and control of granular sub-layering, and refining thresholds for rigid pavement design. Recognising the conservatism built-into FAARFIELD, a shift toward representative input values and 50th percentile failure models in performance prediction is also recommended. These enhancements would improve the global adaptability of FAARFIELD and ensure more accurate and efficient pavement designs across diverse practices.

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