Aircraft Response in an Airfield Arrestor System during an Overrun

Abstract

Air transportation has an overall outstanding safety record. However, accidents do occur. If an aircraft is unable to stop within the runway length, the incident is described as an overrun. To provide passenger safety during an overrun, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requires airports to have a 305 m (1000 ft) runway safety area. At airports that are unable to satisfy this requirement, because of either natural or man-made barriers, the FAA allows the use of a shorter runway safety area with a properly designed arrestor bed. A sensitivity analysis is presented in this paper to investigate critical parameters in the design of an engineered-materials arrestor system (EMAS). A single arrestor-bed configuration is used as a base case for considering a low-density concrete EMAS material. Five aircraft types are considered, ranging from 51,700 kg (114,000 lbs) to 322,100 kg (710,000 lbs) maximum-certificated takeoff weight. These aircraft types include aircraft with various landing-gear configurations. Earlier studies by the authors showed, on the basis of an analysis using B727 and B747 aircraft, that aircraft stopping distance is most sensitive to aircraft weight. This paper investigates a larger suite of aircraft types with a range of weight and main-gear configuration. Stopping distance in this study reflects a critical scenario of zero reverse thrust and minimal tire-pavement friction. In addition to the base-case analysis, additional studies are included to illustrate the dependency of stopping distance on arrestor-material compressive strength and arrestor-bed configuration.