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Airport and Airfield-Related Research
ARA is in its third decade of providing research to airports and airfields. Our efforts have primarily focused on the areas of pavements, safety, and security, and we have served both the military and the commercial communities.
Pavements
Principal Engineers at ARA played significant roles in the development of the Pavement Condition Index (PCI) procedures that are now used worldwide to assess airfield pavement conditions. The PCI development represented ground-breaking research, and the PCI procedures now serve as the heart of the widely implemented MicroPAVER pavement management system . Subsequently, ARA staff provided the pavement designs for the initial test sections constructed at the FAA Technical Center in Atlantic City, New Jersey. These pavement sections helped the FAA's understanding of pavement performance and served as the basis for significant follow-on studies. More recently, ARA has conducted FAA-sponsored pavement research as part of the Innovative Pavement Research Foundation (IPRF) program and the Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP).
These groundbreaking efforts have addressed key areas such as:
- Improved concrete overlay design parameters
- Performance of stabilized and drainable bases
- Use of recycled concrete materials
- Innovative rehabilitation techniques for light-load general aviation
- Contracting for design-build services
- Guidelines for the collection and use of geospatially referenced data for airfield
- Pavement Management
Safety and Security
ARA has conducted pioneering safety and security-related research for the recently formed Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) that is administered by the National Academies. To date, ARA has been awarded the following contracts that are in various stages of completion. The ACRP study on risk assessment for Runway Safety Areas has been completed and accepted for publication in December, 2007.
- A Guidebook for Airport Safety Management Systems
- Aircraft Overrun and Undershoot Analysis for Runway Safety Areas
- Exercising Command-Level Decision Making for Critical Incidents at Airports
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