Analysis of aircrafts kinematic characteristics for pavement design

Runway pavement design and maintenance are a demanding task nowadays both for civil and military airport authorities, and for managing authorities. Mechanistic and empirical mechanistic approaches require a more accurate assessment of actions exerted by aircraft landing gears. Therefore the evaluation of aircraft positioning on runway and the analysis of aircrafts' kinematic characteristics in landing and take-off operations appears fundamental. Following an experimental investigation carried out on an Italian airport, aircraft kinematic data were collected using several video cameras. Landing and take-off procedures were reviewed and a statistical analysis was performed to model touchdown points' longitudinal and transversal distribution. Preliminary comparison with data derived by technical literature has shown a good agreement for the lateral touchdown points distribution.