Example on Design of Flexible Runway Pavement: FAA Method

Question
A new airport runway pavement is to be built to accommodate the aircraft mix shown in
the Table 1 below. The design subgrade is F4 soil (or the Subgrade CBR is 10%). Design
the flexible pavement of the airport using the FAA method. Use the FAA design charts
below (see Figures 14-16, 14-17 & 14-18).

Table 1: Aircraft mix

Aircraft Gross weight (lbs) Gear Type Annual
Departures
B727 210,000 Dual 300,000
B737 115,500 Dual 200,000
B707 333,600 Dual Tandem 60,000
B747 820,000 Double dual Tandem 20,000
VC 10 360,000 Dual Tandem 200,000
Concorde 400,000 Dual Tandem 3,000
The equivalent damage equation used in the FAA method is given by:
𝑤2
log 𝑅1 = log 𝑅2 [ ] ^0.5
𝑤1
Table 2: The conversion values used in the equivalent damage equation are as follows
To convert from To Value
Single Dual 0.8
Single Dual Tandem 0.5
Dual Dual Tandem 0.6
Double dual Tandem Dual Tandem 1.00
Dual Tandem Single 2.00
Dual Tandem Dual 1.70
Dual Single 1.30
Double dual Tandem Dual 1.70

Table 3: The correction factors for annual departures are given in the table below:
Annual Departures Conversion factors
150,000 1.10
200,000 1.12
•
Solution:

The FAA method makes the following assumptions:

i. The FAA design procedure assumes that 95 percent of the gross weight is carried
by the main landing gears and 5 percent is carried by the nose gear. In design, the
weight of the nose gear is therefore ignored or assumed to be negligible.
ii. When an aircraft is moving slowly, its impact on the pavement is very high. An
aircraft is always very fast in the middle part of the runway and slow on other
areas of the airport. Therefore, the middle area of the runway is considered to be
non-critical. Areas such as apron, taxiways and runway end where the aircraft
moves at slow speeds are considered to be critical. Aprons are made of concrete
pavements to prevent effects of oil spillage (since the asphalt surface can easily be
disintegrated by oil).
iii. Along the runway cross-section, areas close to the centreline (60% of the runway
width) are considered to be critical and the remaining area close to the edge is
considered to be non-critical. This is because there is less wonder of the air craft
towards the edge of the runway i.e. it tends to move along/close to the centreline.
iv. In design, annual departures are considered and not annual arrivals. This is
because during departures, the aircraft is loaded with fuel and so it is heavy.
v. All wide body aircrafts i.e. aircrafts whose gross weight is in excess of 300,000 lb
are reduced to a weight of 300,000 lb. This is because they are rare and make few
departures or arrivals.
vi. In critical areas, apply 100% of the pavement thickness and 90% in non-critical
areas.

The following steps are followed during the design process:

Step 1: Determine the design or critical aircraft basing on the pavement thicknesses
required for the different aircrafts in the mix. The aircraft that requires the thickest
pavement is normally the design aircraft.

Referring to the master plan, we look at the different types of aircrafts anticipated to use
the airport pavement. We have to determine the thickness required for each aircraft in
the mix. In our design example, we have the following thicknesses (see column E of Table
4).

Table 4: Solution
A B C D E F G
Aircraft Gross Gear Type Annual Thickness R2 R1
weight Departures (in)
(lbs)
B727 210,000 Dual 300,000 27 180,000 474,617
B737 115,500 Dual 200,000 18 120,000 11,712
B707 333,600 Dual 60,000 27 60,000 39,776
Tandem
 B747 820,000 Double dual 20,000 30 20,000 597
Tandem
VC 10 360,000 Dual 200,000 31 200,000 200,000
Tandem
Concorde 400,000 Dual 3,000 29 3,000 1493
Tandem
Total =728, 195
>25,000

For all dual gears use Figure 14-16 to obtain the pavement thickness. E.g. for B727, with
a gross weight of 210 (x103), draw a horizontal line (blue line) passing through a value of
200 on the vertical axis (since we don’t have 210 on the vertical scale, but this can be
extrapolated, but for convenience let us use 200), move along this horizontal line until
you meet an inclined line for the subgrade class in this case F4. Then draw a vertical line
(green line) from this point of intersection moving downwards till you intersect the
horizontal axis. From the chart, the required pavement thickness for B727 is 27in.

For dual tandem gears use the chart in Figure 14-17.

Some wide body aircrafts have got their own charts e.g. for B747 in this example use the
chart in Figure 14-18.

From column E, the air craft which gives the thickest pavement is VC-10 and this becomes
our design or critical air craft.

Step 2: All air crafts in the mix are grouped into damaging gears of the design aircraft by
multiplying their annual departures by equivalent damage factors in Table 2 above. E.g.
B727 is converted into damaging gears of VC-10 (note we are converting from dual to
dual tandem by multiplying B727’s annual departures of 300,000 by factor of 0.6 to get
R2=180,000 as shown in column F of Table 4).

Please note that it’s at this stage we reduce the gross weight of all wide body aircrafts to
a weight of 300,000lb and convert their gears to dual tandem (DT). As per this example,
the weight of B747 has been reduced from 820,000lb to 300,000lb and from double dual
tandem (DDT) to dual tandem (DT). Therefore, the damaging factor is 1 and its
R2=200,000.

Step 3: Determine the equivalent annual departures by all aircrafts in the mix using the
equation below:
𝑤2
log 𝑅1 = log 𝑅2 [ ] ^0.5
𝑤1

Where; R1 is the equivalent passes or departures of the design aircraft

R2 is the number of departures of the anticipated passes of the aircraft in the mix
W1 is the wheel load of the design aircraft (the load transferred by a single wheel
on the pavement). The wheel load of the design aircraft or VC-10 is given by;

W1=95%x360,000/8 (a dual tandem gear has 8 wheels and 95% is carried by the
main gear)
 W1= 35,625lb
W2 is the wheel load of any other aircraft in the mix. E.g. the wheel load of a B727
is given by:
W2=95%x210,000/4 (a dual gear has 4 wheels and 95% is carried by the main
gear)
W2=49,875lb

Step 4: Get the summation of the equivalent annual departures (R1) by all aircrafts. If this
value is greater than 25,000 apply a correction using the factors in Table 3 above. In our
case the total is 728,195>25,000.

We can extrapolate the factors in Table 3 to get the factor corresponding to the sum and
in this case a correction factor of 1.33 was obtained.

Step 5: Obtain the thickness of the runway pavement by multiplying the thickness of the
design aircraft by the correction factor obtained in step 4 above.

Corrected pavement thickness =31x1.33=42 inches

To obtain the thicknesses of the wearing course and base course, we go back to the chart
of the design aircraft in Figure 14-17 above and look at the region where the horizontal
line (blue solid line) drawn from the gross weight of the aircraft (i.e. 360 (103)) meets
the inclined subgrade class line (F4). Move along that region (along the blue dotted line)
& read off the base thickness, as per this example, it is 11in. The wearing course thickness
is obtained from the right-hand bottom corner of the chart, in our case its 4in in critical
areas and 3in in non-critical areas. See Table 5 for pavement cross-section.

Table 5: Pavement thicknesses in critical and non-critical areas.

Layer Critical Non critical
Wearing 4 3
Base 11 10
Sub base 29 29
Note: Since it is difficult to construct a pavement with varying thicknesses, the current
practice is to lay a pavement with uniform thickness.