Analysis of the Impact of New Generation Narrow-Body Aircraft on Flexible and Rigid Regional Airport Pavements

Airport pavements have always evolved to keep pace with the demands of new aircraft. As aircraft weights and tyre pressures increase, stronger, new pavements are designed and existing pavements are rehabilitated or upgraded. The narrow-body commercial jet aircraft, including the A320 and B737 families, are examples of aircraft that have retained the same number of wheels, with the same wheel spacing and the same wingspan, but have increased in weight and tyre pressure by approximately 50%. This places significant demand on airport pavements that were designed for the lighter variants but now face the introduction of the newer, heavier and more demanding variants. This research quantified the impact of the new A320 and B737 narrow-body aircraft variants on rigid and flexible regional airport pavements, where these are the critical aircraft, as well as demonstrating the importance of understanding the operational weight limitations of these aircraft, which is often well below the published maximum weight. Within the context of the pavements considered, the additional pavement thickness required for the heaviest aircraft variants, compared to the lightest variants, was 51%. Based on four examples from real regional airports in Australia, it was found that the additional embodied carbon associated with these new aircraft variants was 2.1–85.3 kg·eCO2/m2 of pavement, while the additional financial cost was AUD 6–219/m2 of pavement. It was concluded that airport pavement thickness designers must challenge the weight of the design aircraft and not take the simple and conservative approach of adopting the maximum weight of the heaviest variant within each aircraft family. By doing so, significant additional pavement thickness will be constructed for no practical benefit, creating an environmental (embodied carbon) and economic (financial cost) burden.

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