Airport Taxiways Research Articles

FEM analysis of the hatch for special use

The thesis focuses on the design of a maintenance hole cover for a service shaft that will be located near the taxiway. Service shafts are a common part of airport taxiways, as they are necessary for the operation of the security and announcement systems that are present at every airport. Each piece of infrastructure that is used at an airport is subject to strict standards that must be met in order for the facility to be used at the airport. The main objective of this thesis is to analyse and simulate the stress tests that are specified by the standard followed by a thorough analysis.

Surface control techniques for tunnels in karst areas under airport taxiways

Under the conditions of karst development and soft upper and hard lower strata, ground-settlement control for tunnels under airport taxiways is stricter than for ordinary tunnels. Tunnel construction methods and karst disposal measures are also important. These are engineering problems that need to be solved urgently to ensure the safe passage of tunnels under airport taxiways. Taking the intercity railway tunnel under taxiways T3 and T4 of Guangzhou Baiyun international airport as a case study, theoretical analysis and field tests on karst treatment measures and ground-settlement control measures were conducted. Karst treatment measures and a pile support plate (PSP) structure have been proposed to support the taxiways. The effect of the system was analysed numerically method and on-site surface settlement was monitored. The maximum monitored settlement of T3 and T4 taxiway surfaces was 5.90 mm and the differential settlement was 0.12‰. The numerical results provided a similar value and did not exceed the settlement control standard for airport taxiways. The key technologies for the construction of tunnels under airport taxiways in karst areas and upper soft and lower hard strata are presented, karst disposal measures are summarised and the PSP protection system is described. The results provide reference information for similar projects.

Multi-Agent Terraforming: Efficient Multi-Agent Path Finding via Environment Manipulation

Planning collision-free paths for multiple agents operating in close proximity has a myriad of applications ranging from smart warehouses to route planning for airport taxiways. This problem, known as the Multi-Agent Path-Finding (MAPF) problem, is highly relevant to real-world applications in automation and robotics, and has attracted significant research in recent years. While in many applications, the robots are tasked with transporting objects and thus have the means to move obstacles, common formulations of the problem prohibit agents from moving obstacles en-route to a task. This often causes agents to take long detours to avoid obstacles instead of simply moving them to clear a path. In this work we present multi-agent terraforming, a novel extension of the MAPF problem that can exploit the fact that the system contains movable obstacles. We build upon leading MAPF solvers and propose an efficient method to solve the multi-agent terraforming problem in a manner that is both complete and optimal. We evaluate our method on scenarios inspired by smart warehouses (such as those of Amazon) and demonstrate that, compared to the classical MAPF formulation, the extra flexibility provided by terraforming facilitates a notable improvement of solution quality.

Structural characteristics and form analysis of taxiway bridge in military airport

The scale of modern airport continues to expand, considering the needs of future use of multiple aircraft types and models, in order to improve the relevant design and planning of taxiways in the current military airport, it is necessary to consider the structure of airport taxiways and Bridges. According to the experience of the civil airport taxi road and bridge construction, the paper analyzes the military airfield taxiing bridge structural characteristics and load characteristic, proposed for use in military airfield taxiing bridge structure form, the slide to the width of the bridge, span layout, section forms, high beam and the size, the details for the military airport taxi provides the reference for the simulation modeling and the analysis of internal force of bridge.

Methodologies for assessing the longitudinal roughness of airport taxiways and runways

As a significant indicator of the condition of airport surfaces, the longitudinal roughness significantly affects the comfort and safety of passengers and crew members when navigating the airplanes on the airport taxiways and runways, which is why the location of uneven zones and their prompt rehabilitation is one of main tasks in managing the airport infrastructure. Several different methodologies are available to assess the pavement surface roughness. Some of them, such as the International Roughness Index (IRI), have been taken from road practices. Boing has developed a methodology that takes into account differences in the design of aircraft and road vehicles and this methodology is specified within the ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) standard. In addition, various softwares are being developed which, using mathematical models, simulate aircraft movement along the measured profile, and thus determine the parameters related to longitudinal roughness of the surface. This paper presents the methods and their application on a concrete example of an airport runway pavement.

Computational Platform for Analyzing the Safety of the National Airspace System

Safety analysis of complex systems can be carried out using computational models of the subsystems and their interactions. A modeling framework for analyzing the safety of the national airspace operations is described. The framework enables investigators to collaboratively formulate models of the subsystems of the National Airspace System and insert off-nominal operating conditions to assess their impact on the overall system safety. The software is designed to allow popular computational frameworks such as Python and Java to interact with it in a seamless manner. Interfaces to one of the popular commercial computational package are also provided. The software incorporates detailed aspects of the national airspace system infrastructure such as airport taxi ways and runways, approach-departure procedures, jet routes, air traffic control Sector and Center boundaries. It also includes simplified human performance models of controllers, pilots and ground vehicle operators. Performance data for over 400 different aircraft types, derived from a well-known database have also been incorporated. Airspace flight operations data is obtained from the Federal Aviation Administration data feed, and the weather data is derived from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration web site. Two example applications of the software are given.

Update: Magnetic Field Sensors Could Help Halt Runway Crashes

Air-traffic control is a complex and high-stress business. Mistakes are not allowed. And it's not limited to directing planes for takeoff and landing - a job that's been memorably described as three-dimensional chess. It also includes keeping track of where planes are on the ground. According to safety watchdog Eurocontrol, in 2005 alone there were 600 occasions when people, cars, or planes crossed Europe's airport taxiways when they shouldn't have. In fact, the most deadly airline accident ever happened on the ground: in 1977, two 747 jumbo jets collided in the Canary Islands, killing 583 people. Most big airports have expensive ground-radar systems to keep track of where the hundreds of moving planes are on the sprawling tarmacs. But ground radar sometimes reflects off buildings and terminals, leaving small gaps in coverage. Smaller airports like the one in Thessaloniki, Greece, can't afford ground radar. Such blind spots on the ground at airports large and small have prompted European researchers to explore the use of fluctuations in the Earth's magnetic field to better pinpoint where planes are on busy taxiways. The results, researchers say, show that using US $150 sensors can fill in the blind spots.

Methods for Operations Planning in Airport Decision Support Systems

Simulation and decision support tools can help airport ground controllers to improve surface operations and safety, leading to enhancements in the process of traffic flow management. In this paper, two planning approaches for automatically finding the best routes and sequences for demanded operations are proposed and analyzed. These approaches are integrated into a general decision support system architecture. The problem addressed is the global management of departure operations, moving aircraft along airport taxiways between gate positions and runways. Two global optimization approaches have been developed together with a suitable problem representation: a modified time-space flow algorithm and a genetic algorithm, both aimed at minimizing the total ground delay. The capability and performance of these planning techniques have been illustrated on simulated samples of ground operations at Madrid Barajas International Airport.

Visibility Improvements with Overplow Deflectors during High-Speed Snowplowing

Windtunnel and field experiments are presented to quantify visibility improvements with deflectors that were placed over the top of snowplow blades and were designed to reduce airborne debris. Windtunnel measurements provide the influence of overplow deflectors on the distribution of debris around the truck. Road tests on airport taxiways and highways show that the visible area of the plow truck increases by about 50% for following traffic and that snow debris, which blows over the top of the plow, is eliminated with trap angles less than 50°.

Biodegradation of Aircraft Deicing Fluids in Soil at Low Temperatures

The effects of substrate concentration and temperature on the biodegradation of five different aircraft deicing fluids was examined in soil samples obtained from an area adjacent to an airport runway. The principle organic constituents, which included ethylene, propylene, and diethylene glycols, were shown to be mineralized to carbon dioxide in soil microcosms incubated at temperatures ranging from −2 to 25°C. No lag period was observed, and biological transformation of the test chemicals began immediately after addition to the soil. Glycol biodegradation was observed in soil at concentrations ranging from 392 to 5278 mg/kg, suggesting that high levels of the deicing fluids are unlikely to be inhibitory to soil microorganisms. All three glycols were readily degraded in soil at 8 and 25°C, regardless of whether the compounds were present singly or as a component of a mixture. In addition, the biodegradation rates for the three compounds were very similar. Average rates were in the range of 19.7 to 27.0 mg/kg soil per day at 8°C and 66.3 to 93.3 mg/kg soil per day for soil samples incubated at 25°C. The soil biodegradation rates were reduced in soils at −2°C to between 2.3 and 4.5 mg/kg per day. Based on these results, biodegradation is expected to play a major role in removing residual levels of glycols from soils adjacent to airport taxiways and runways.

Auxiliary Equipment

Details of Some Components Used for Subsidiary Services in Aircraft, Missiles and Space Vehicles. Details of Some Components Used for Subsidiary Services in Aircraft, Missiles and Space Vehicles Evers & Wall Ltd., of Lambourn Woodlands, Newbury, Berkshire, who have for many years specialised in the manufacture of high performance sprayers, have developed and produced a new sprayer which applies chemicals for the removal of ice from the surfaces of airport runways and taxiways.