Improvement of the bearing capacity on the safety lanes/areas adjacent to airport runways

• Main Authors: Stirb, Adelin, Marc, Paul, Forton, Andrei, Mirea, Monica
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Subjects: Air navigation; Aircraft landing; Airports; Bearing capacity; California bearing ratio; Penetration tests; Regulations; Runways; Seat belts; Soil mechanics; Soils; Stabilization
• ISSN: 0094-243X; 1551-7616
• DOI: 10.1063/5.0170429

One of the most important infrastructure elements concerning the safety of air navigation is the existence, configuration and characteristics of the safety belts and areas at the end of the takeoff/landing runways (RESA) in an airport. These technical characteristics are stipulated and explained by the norms and regulations concerning the operation of airports and the safety of air traffic. The paper presents the authors’ research aiming at determining the characteristics of the soils beneath the runways of an airport from Romania by realizing in situ and laboratory investigations. Thus, during the first stage of the research, the authors determined the characteristics of the soil in the location: grading, plasticity, consistency index, stratification of the ground through geotechnical drilling and sounding; bearing capacity of the ground through light dynamic penetrations (PDU) and by determining the CBR index (Californian Bearing Ratio). Several technical solutions have been proposed to improve the bearing capacity to reach the CBR (CBR = 15…20%) according to the standards stipulated by the Romanian Civil Aeronautic Regulations RACR-AD-PETA. The studies have been directed towards two alterative solutions to improve the beating capacity, namely: mechanical stabilization of local soil with different proportions of gravel, and stabilization with special hydraulic binders.