IPOD Abstract for presentation (Poster or Podium) with a Paper in the Conference Proceedings
Airport Pavements
Michael A. Gerardi
Director, Consulting Services
APR Consultants, Inc.
Medway, OH, United States
Matthew T. Brynick
Civil Engineer
FAA
Dane, WI, United States
Michael A. Gerardi
Director, Consulting Services
APR Consultants, Inc.
Medway, OH, United States
This FAA sponsored research describes changes made to the FAA’s airport pavement roughness evaluation software “ProFAA” and suggested revisions to FAA AC 150/5380-9 “Guidelines and Procedures for Measuring Airfield Pavement Roughness”. This FAA funded research effort is in support of the FAA’s Airport Technology Research and Development (ATRD) Broad Agency Announcement, BAA #692M15-20-R-00004, Topic Number: ARAP0001: Method to Identify and Quantify Multiple Event Roughness.
Phase 1 of this research project developed a method to detect and quantify multiple event roughness on runways and taxiways using measured profile data only. Phase 1 also empirically developed limits of acceptability using over 70 runway and taxiway profiles. The publicly available software program “ProVAL” was used in Phase 1 to develop the method and help establish the limits of acceptability. Results of Phase 1 were presented at the 2023 ASCE conference in Austin, Texas.
Phase 2 of this research project incorporated the method and limits of acceptability developed in Phase 1 into “ProFAA” which is the FAA’s roughness evaluation software.
This paper describes the results of the 2-Phase research. It includes a demonstration of the updated version of ProFAA with the MER (Multiple Event Roughness) operation. It also describes a summary of the recommended changes to FAA AC 150/5380-9 “Guidelines and Procedures for Measuring Airfield Pavement Roughness”. These changes will enable the user to effectively evaluate their airfield pavements for all roughness events.
As a result of this multi-year effort, ProFAA is now capable of locating and quantifying multiple event roughness using measured profile data only. The method works for taxiways as well as runways. In addition, a process was developed to quickly categorize pavements as acceptable, excessive, or unacceptable. Excessive or unacceptable pavement sections can then be evaluated for potential corrective action.