Full-scale aicraft tire pressure tests
Résumé
This paper describes an outdoor full-scale test planned to improve experimental and theoretical knowledge related to the effects of aircraft internal tire inflation pressure on the behavior and damage of flexible pavement. Since modern aircraft can have tire pressures greater than 15 bar, the tests focus on pressures from 15 to 17.5 bar. The experimental pavement located on the Toulouse-Blagnac airport in France will include up to seven al different test sections, representative of current airfield flexible pavement. Variant parameters from one section to another are thickness of AC surface layer and its performance towards rutting, and surface treatment as grooving. The aircraft simulation vehicle will drive four dual-wheel gears spaced enough in order to prevent from any interaction between them, making it possible to test two different tire pressures (15 and 17.5 bars) and two weights par wheel (28.5 and 33.2 tons) simultaneously. The seven test sections will be instrumented in order to measure resilient strains, and resilient and permanent displacements (rutting). The structure have been designed according to the French airport pavement design method, for 10,000 passes of the heavier gear. Test will be performed until the pavement surface damage result in an airport decision to repair. The attempt will be made to isolate pavement failure related to tire pressure effects only, namely the rutting of bituminous layers according to the authors predictions, but not to test the pavement complete failure. After test completion, results will be presented at ICAO level for their consideration.