Jet Stopping Distance and Behavior in a Regional Airport EMAS

Abstract

An aircraft overrun occurs when an aircraft is unable to stop within the design runway length. To promote safety at United States airports, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requires airports to have a runway safety area extending 1,000 ft (304.8 m) beyond both ends of the runway. However, in some cases natural or manmade barriers prevent satisfying this requirement. For these cases, one solution is to install an engineered materials arresting system (EMAS). An EMAS is a passive system constructed using low-strength cementitious blocks. Typically, an EMAS is designed for the heaviest aircraft based at the airport. Heavy aircraft fully crush the EMAS material and therefore their behavior within an EMAS is predictable. However, the National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems (NPIAS) includes many regional airports, which are supported by lightweight regional jets. Regional jet behavior within an EMAS differs from heavier aircraft. This paper investigates the EMAS performance and aircraft behavior in an EMAS of three aircraft types: CRJ200ER, B727-100, and B737-900ER. EMAS performance is measured through tire penetration and stopping distance. The CRJ200ER is a lightweight aircraft commonly used to support air travel to regional airports. For comparison, the B737-900ER is included in the study as a common narrow body, short to medium range mainline aircraft. The B727-100 is included to validate the computer code used in this paper. Although outdated, the B727-100 is similar in weight to the B737-900ER, and serves to compare the significance of landing gear parameters. The EMAS geometry and material strength of the EMAS bed at Yeager Airport in Charleston, West Virginia is used as a representative regional airport EMAS. An actual overrun incident involving a CRJ200ER at Yeager Airport is numerically modeled. These numerical results are compared with the actual event results to approximate actual braking during the event.