Analysis of the operating conditions of mobile composite airfield pavements

Abstract

Safety maintenance is a key and essential condition for flight operations performance by aircraft. It refers to all functional elements of an airport, i.e. runways, taxiways and aprons, as part of the movement area at civil, as well as military airports. Airfield pavements, likewise the aircraft and technical personnel of ground control directly affecting the safety of flight operations, are the integral part of each functional element of an airport. Airports in the event of force majeure, critical events and foremost, in the event of war threat are the facilities that would be the first objects to focus on. As a result, airfield pavements constructions would be destroyed and require quick reconstruction that guarantee its restoration of operational readiness and safety conditions for operating aircraft. Existing technology and methods of airfield pavement reconstruction could not meet the stringent time requirements of military operations, that is why mobile, composite airfield mats have been developed. In the paper, operational and maintenance advantages of the elastic, mobile airfield mat ELP-1 KRATER manufactured by Shipyard Żuławy are shown. There is presented the computational model of composite pavement which co-operates with subbase and also shown are the results of field tests, performed by the Air Force Institute of Technology. Moreover, there are presented the results of load-bearing capacity of the composite airfield mat ELP-1 KRATER received during field tests.