NUMERICAL ANALYSIS EFFECT OF AIRCRAFT MAIN GEARS ON THE CRITICAL ZONES OF RUNWAY RIGID PAVEMENT

Rigid pavement design in airport runways is based on tension critical stress at the bottom of the concrete slab. Determination of slab's critical zones, under airplanes loading types in 3D finite element modeling is the objective of this study. Numerical study to determination main gear role in passenger, commercial and military airplanes on pavement critical stress and also critical zones determination in the runway rigid pavement by using of finite element software, ABAQUS is done. In order to this study, 148 wheels characteristic of different airplanes and in various loading positions including edge and center of the concrete slab is considered. Results show that among different airplanes, A380F, B777-300ER, C17A and Concorde impose maximum tensional stress on the solid pavement airport runway. Also in all kinds of airplanes, the maximum critical stress under concrete slab is happening when the length of wheels lie on concrete slab edge.