The proposal focuses on the implementation of sensors in a runway pavement in order to monitor the pavement response caused by mechanical and thermal conditions. In this field, continuous monitoring of airport pavement saves money and time needed for in-situ surveys, allows the collection of physical and mechanical data useful to predict the pavement performance during its service life. Moreover, this approach reduces the risk and the interference from the periodic surveys activities which are necessary for a correct Airport Pavement Management System. An instrumented runaway pavement could represent a management technology in order to offer an efficient transport system and balance often conflicting constrains due to safety, traffic and economical issues.
The main objectives are:
1) to analyze the longitudinal and transversal distribution of airplane traffic distribution over a runway using a probabilistic approach;
2) to identify the most trafficked areas where sensors could be installed;
3) to analyze the physical and functional characteristics of sensors and instruments useful to measure temperature, strain, stress, deformation, moisture;
4) to design the instrumentation of a runway pavement with both static and dynamic sensors.
Because of an agreement that the researchers involved in the proposed project have with the Italian Air Force, the project will be the base to continue this collaboration. Indeed, the Italian Air Force intends to provide one or more of the runways of their airports with instruments to monitor the behavior of their pavements.
Moreover, the proposed methodology could be implemented in different paved areas where high volume and heavy vehicles are expected, as roads and port handling plants.
Up to now, instrumented runways to collect and manage data are poorly implemented in the pavement management systems of airport infrastructures. A similar system could be cheaper than the current method to monitor the airport pavement and it could have the following advantages compared with the current practice:
1. the measured stresses and strains are the values really induced by the airplanes, while those one registered with a FWD (the most currently used instrument) are produced by a falling weight, sometimes very different from the actual loads of the traffic running in the pavement;
2. the values are continuously measured;
3. the proposed methodology does not interfere with regular traffic flow, is not affected by unfavorable weather conditions, avoids exposure of surveyors to risk, guarantees that flight operations are conducted without causing a degradation of safety;
4. the implementation of the proposed system will allow studying the evolution of fatigue and rutting damage in construction bound and unbound materials, respectively;
5. a thermal model to describe the effects of climatic factors on stress-strain pavement condition will be defined to correctly describe the pavement temperature during a cloudless day.