Runway excursions: Bearing strength control of unpaved areas

Abstract

The paper deals with the Dynamic Cone Penetrometer application which is intended to work as a vital means to support the bearing strength evaluation over the vast unpaved airport areas. Having identified fundamental drawbacks, the authors proposed some refinements in the original methodology. These predominantly respect the needs of airport operation services. Specifically, the model based on fuzzy logic and two tables, exceptionally suitable for day-to-day applications, are proposed and tested upon the extensive data set acquired at four airports over the last four years.