Evaluating the removal performance and friction characteristics of runway contaminants

Abstract

The skid resistance of runway pavements is very important for the safety of aircraft operations. The reasons that lead to lower friction are complicated and include factors such as the number of aircraft landings, micro and macro texture changes, mechanical wear and polishing actions from aircraft tyres rolling or braking on the pavement. Thoroughly identifying friction characteristics can be time-consuming and impractical for airport operations as most airport employees do not operate friction-related testing instruments such as the sand patch device, British pendulum tester, dynamic friction tester etc. This paper presents an algorithm used to track friction changes and evaluate rubber removal performance to illustrate how measured friction data can be formulated so they can be interpreted and analysed into a series of readable results. A series of friction datasets was obtained from an international airport as a case study to show airport employees the process of data acquisition, interpretation and analysis so as to monitor/track friction changes and evaluate the performance of rubber removal actions without further texture measurements or friction tests.