Analysis of AM2 Airfield Matting Performance Under Six-Wheel Boeing C-17 Gear Loading

摘要

Methods previously developed to predict the performance of AM2 aluminum airfield matting subjected to single-wheel aircraft loads were evaluated in this paper to determine their validity for the complex six-wheel Boeing C-17 main landing gear. These methods, derived from full-scale accelerated Boeing F-15E trafficking, were used to predict deformation of the subgrade as a function of the California bearing ratio (CBR) and the number of aircraft passes. The same data set was also used to predict fatigue failure of the mat system's joints over any CBR. A laboratory test fixture and procedure were designed to mimic the boundary conditions experienced by the mat during full-scale experiments (single-wheel F-15E in the original experiments) so that variations of the joints and any subgrade CBR can theoretically be tested in fatigue without the expense of full-scale experiments. Results presented in this paper showed that, even with a more complex loading configuration (i.e., C-17), the trends published previously for the F-15E were supported, and the procedures offered reasonable predictions for AM2.