Predicting Aircraft Stopping Distances within an EMAS

Abstract

An overrun is an accident/incident in which an aircraft is unable to stop within the design runway length. To minimize the adverse consequences of an overrun, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requires airports to have a runway end safety-area 305 m (1,000-ft) long beyond the runway design length. However, many U.S. airports are unable to satisfy this requirement without limiting the aircraft mix using the airport. In response, the FAA permits installing an engineered materials arrestor system (EMAS) as an alternative solution. Four aircraft types are investigated in this paper for stopping-distance behavior within an EMAS, as follows: (1) B737-900ER, (2) B757-300, (3) B767-400ER, and (4) B747-400ER. Stopping distances are evaluated using a base arrestor bed configuration and base arrestor material. Aircraft strut behavior, aircraft pitch moment of inertia, and bogie weights are proprietary to aircraft manufacturing companies; therefore, approximate values for load-stroke behavior, damping, pitch moment of inertia, and bogie weights are developed in this paper. Besides the base arrestor material, a suite of five low-density concrete mixes with varying stress-strain behavior are investigated for their impact on aircraft stopping-distance. In addition, aircraft stopping-distance as a function of arrestor bed configuration is investigated.