Article
citation information:
Brodzik, R. The use and
effectiveness of highway landing strip construction in Poland. Scientific Journal of Silesian University of Technology. Series
Transport. 2019, 105, 65-75.
ISSN: 0209-3324. DOI: https://doi.org/10.20858/sjsutst.2019.105.6.
Robert BRODZIK[1]
THE USE
AND EFFECTIVENESS OF HIGHWAY LANDING STRIP CONSTRUCTION IN POLAND
Summary. The efficiency of maintaining road pavements in good
condition in Poland, and, in particular, maintaining their good technical condition,
depends mainly on the availability of financial resources and conducting
ongoing works related to road operation and maintenance. Selected European
countries, including Poland, reactivated the concept of reconstruction and use
of highway landing strips. Based on the analysis of the technical parameters of
a newly built highway landing strip, this publication presents, using the
finite element method (FEM), the verification of the technical parameter values
potentially resulting from the maximum load caused by a C-130 Hercules
aircraft.
Keywords: highway landing strip,
finite element method, road infrastructure, financial resources
1. INTRODUCTION
Transport is an activity involving
the proper movement of people and cargo in space from the point of posting to
the point of reception using the appropriate means of transport, as well as the
provision of related auxiliary services, such as forwarding. Execution of this task
requires performing a number of activities and creating the appropriate
conditions in order to make this process effective in the context of three
fundamental elements: safety, time, and costs. Transport is a branch of the
national economy that is very closely connected with the national budget,
and the strength of this relationship is evidenced by the amount of state
budget funds spent on investment, modernisation, operation, and maintenance of
transport infrastructure. Transport services, particularly road transport
services, are one of the factors which stimulate the economic development of
Poland.
The development of road
infrastructure is often used as a kind of instrument in the political game.
Assumptions, plans, and prospects for the construction of new elements of the
so-called road network infrastructure are frequently treated as some sort of
arguments and bargaining cards. Without any doubt, it is the road
infrastructure which directly influences the economic development of our
country and its individual regions and is the key to its rational and
sustainable development. Wrongly developed strategic plans result in poor
operational decisions, which in combination with enormous financial outlays
cause in such a case a huge disappointment if not the frustration of the
society. Therefore, in order to properly serve its users, transport
infrastructure together with other facilities requires appropriate and rational
planning, as well as operational and maintenance works. Technical condition of
the roads, as well as the comfort and duration of the transport process, depend
directly on the effective execution of these works. The condition of roads, on
the other hand, indirectly influences the mobility of society, the development
of the national economy, as well as the spatial cohesion of the country [1,6,9]. This is the reason it is so important to adopt
specific strategic objectives and allocate funds to meet them in terms of
optimising efficiency throughout the life cycle of the product being the
process of preparation for the investment project, its implementation,
construction, and the actual use. [12,5]
In Poland, the state is responsible
for maintaining national roads and it delegates this power to the
administrator, that is, the General Director of National Roads and Motorways
and the road authority acting on his behalf – the General Directorate for
National Roads and Motorways (in Polish, GDDKiA).
Objective and appropriate assessment of GDDKiA's
activity is a broad issue and it requires the use of a specially developed set
of indicators for measuring the effectiveness of road maintenance management.
Data concerning the technical condition of the road pavement, together with
information on vehicle traffic, and the traffic accident analysis, are
important elements used in the road management process. Every year, in the
first quarter, GDDKiA publishes its report on the
technical condition of the pavement of the national road network for the
preceding year. On the basis of the data in question, GDDKiA
develops, among others, the measures for the Annual Operating Plan of the General Directorate of National Roads and
Motorways and the measures for the financial plan in the classification
system of the activity-based budget. Investments concerning national roads are
currently conducted in accordance with the national road construction program for
the years 2014-2023 (with a perspective until 2025), which was approved on 8th
September 2015 by the resolution of the Council of Ministers (that is, the
Polish Government). This program sets out the directions of activities and
investment priorities within the development framework of the Polish national
road network. Furthermore, it diagnoses the current road sector condition and
defines both the objectives planned for implementation and also the key areas
constituting the so-called bottlenecks. Additionally, It
makes reference to the commitments and challenges that Poland may be facing in
the near future.
The analysis of annual reports in
view of its comparative assessment shows that in recent years, GDDKiA has made significant progress, among other things,
in the development of standards for the ongoing road maintenance and the
pavement condition assessment. Owing to the adoption and implementation of best
international practices, the operational efficiency of the road administration
in Poland increased slowly and successively. At the end of 2017, according to
the GDDKiA report, the global assessment of the
network of national roads, taking into account their pavement condition, was as
follows:
- desirable/good condition
– 58.1% (12,342 km),
- unsatisfactory/warning condition
– 27% (5,534 km),
- critical/inadequate condition
– 14.5% (3,077 km).
In comparison with the analogous
report on the pavement condition from 2007, there was an almost 8% decrease in
the length of the road network in Poland, whose condition was described as
critical, and an increase in the percentage of pavements described as
unsatisfactory (4.5%) and desirable (3%) [4].
National road construction program
for the years 2014-2023 (with a perspective until 2025) is the document which
defines road infrastructure development goals, includes a schedule of
investment implementation to achieve them, and indicates the financing sources
with the amount of planned outlays. The main goal of the program is to build a
modern and coherent national road network that would ensure the effective
functioning of passenger and freight road transport. It is planned that after the implementation of the program, in
2023, GDDKiA will manage a total of over 22 thousand
kilometres of roads, over 4,600 km of which will be highways and expressways. The total length of the
national network will include 20,660 km of asphalt roads (approximately 94%)
and 1,350 km of concrete roads (over 6%) [10].
2. HIGHWAY LANDING STRIP
Even though road
infrastructure is mainly used to provide transport with wheeled motor vehicles,
in recent years, separate fragments of road pavements have been used with
varying intensity as elements of airport infrastructure. The origin of road
runways, called highway landing strips, dates back to World War II when
military decision-makers noticed for the first time the possibility of using an
extensive system of highways as potential temporary airports. A widespread and
relatively modern network of highways having a length of approximately 14,000
km was a perfect base for that. Until the outbreak of World War II, the Germans
managed to build almost 52 million square meters of roads with concrete
pavement, approximately 80% of which were concrete-paved highways. In the
course of the war, intense air raids on airport infrastructure somehow forced
the necessity for alternative ways to ensure the possibility of conducting air
operations by own forces. The end of World War II was a period of time during
which in various European countries, including Poland, became very popular to
create visions of air force functioning based on the use of highway landing
strips. Most of the highway landing strips were situated in the western and
northern parts of the country, which resulted from the geopolitical situation
and potential threats from enemy air force during the Cold War era.
The end of the Cold War
period caused a change in defence policy based on the alternative use of
temporary airport infrastructure in most European countries. Similarly in
Poland, there was a lack of interest in the concept of further use and
maintenance of the existing highway landing strips and the plans for the
construction of new ones.
3. REACTIVATION OF THE CONCEPT OF BUILDING HIGHWAY
LANDING STRIPS IN POLAND
The breakthrough event for the
reactivation of the concept of building highway landing strips in Poland was 7
May 2013, when the contract was signed for the continuation of the A4 highway construction, from the Krzyż
interchange to the Dębica Pustynia
interchange. The
general executor of the investment project was Heilit-Woerner
Sp. z o.o. consortium and Budimex
S.A company. The total value
of the contract was 981.5 million PLN. After many years, the first completely
new highway landing strip was built on the newly built section of the A4 highway between Tarnów
and Dębica. Plans to create a highway landing
strip at the same place commenced in 1998 when the location for the facility
was pointed out by the Ministry of National Defence. The characteristic
features of the highway landing strip in Jastrząbka
are: length 3 km, width 30 m, 15 m shoulders free from obstacles, and mobile
concrete barriers, easy to be deployed quickly if necessary (Fig.1). At the beginning and end of the highway landing
strip, there are widened areas, the aprons for parking aircraft, where aircraft
maintenance may be conducted (refuelling, inspections, munitions resupply).
The history of recent wars shows
that one of the most effective combat tactics used by the air force in the
battle for air superiority is a preemptive strike on
the enemy's air force. Disabling the air force and preventing its operation for
a period of several days is of decisive importance, particularly in the initial
phase of an armed conflict. It is anticipated that operationally sensitive elements
of airfields will be attacked to prevent their use in order to paralyse the air
force.
Airfields to be attacked
in the first place will be home airbases, then the remaining regular airbases
(alternate), and finally, highway landing strips. The most important elements that
determine the operation of any airport include manoeuvring areas and main
taxiways. Therefore, their pavement constitutes primary targets of the enemy's
destructive actions.
Will the change in the planning
policy and, in consequence, also the organisation of a “new” type
of road infrastructure in Poland have a long term influence on its use? Will
the reactivation of the highway landing strip construction in Poland lead to
the creation of a concept for their use by the military and civil aviation?
Will this type of airport infrastructure elements work well in potential future
conflicts, using advanced modern munitions, as well as aircraft which will
require an infrastructure of the appropriate “quality”.
In the 1990s, Poland officially had 21 highway landing strips. The
analysis of their present technical condition points out to the fact that
currently only one of them in the vicinity of the city of Szczecin is active.
There are two main reasons that have led to their current state: repairs and
modernisations for many years were not taken into consideration, leaving the
road infrastructure, its landing strip function, and the gradual deterioration
of the technical condition of the remaining highway landing strips in bad
states, automatically eliminating their potentials as possible airfields.
The analysis of the
documentation of the newly created highway landing strip, going back to the
concept from the turn of the century, and the lack of precise plans for the
construction of new strips, prove that there is a lot of tardiness or even a
lack of interest in reactivating them. The main problem area to be
assessed is the analysis of traffic organisation in the event of a temporary
closure of the road on which a highway landing strip is located. Moreover,
following the example of the Scandinavian countries, training should be
regularly conducted on such installations in order to maintain high combat
readiness. Conducting such training with the aircraft currently operated by the
Air Force (F-16) is unlikely due to their susceptibility to FOD
(Foreign Object Damage). Given the
restrictive standards concerning, among other things, cleanliness, preparing a
landing strip on an ordinary national road may prove difficult.
Cross-section on the highway landing strip
Runway end safety area (RESA)
Cross-section on the highway landing strip
Runway section
Fig.1 The cross-section of
the highway landing strip in Jastrząbka
Source: on the basis of the materials by Budimex
SA, ul. Stawki 40, 01-040
Warszawa, from 15th October, 2018
Airport pavements have
undergone tremendous technological evolution compared to their original models
from the early 1920s. Airport pavements may be divided into two
basic groups:
- natural pavements, which includes dirt, grass and
turf surfaces,
- artificial pavements, which regarding the manner of load
transfer are divided into:
-
rigid pavements made of cement concrete,
-
flexible pavements made on the basis of bituminous binders,
-
mixed construction pavements.
Currently, concrete
pavements are increasingly used in the construction of airports, and building
of the national road network.
Advantages of concrete
pavements in the context of highway landing strip construction:
- high durability
independent of the season, and variable load carrying capacity of the subgrade,
-
low rolling friction coefficient,
-
high sliding friction
coefficient,
- good resistance to high
temperatures caused by exhaust gases of aircraft engines,
- good resistance to
greases and fuels used in aviation,
- bright colour increasing
visibility and contrasting well with the surrounding pavement of the shoulders.
Disadvantages of concrete pavements:
- low use of the
permissible compressive stress of concrete,
- large length of
expansion gaps being the weakest places of concrete pavements
-
slightly higher construction costs [4, 6].
Analyses
of highway landing strips in use mainly in Europe show that most of them are
made in concrete technology. Was the idea of their construction using
bituminous technology, whose main disadvantage is much lower strength, and,
what it involves, durability, justified? In the case of highway landing strips,
however, their durability will be determined mainly by the effects of wheeled
vehicle traffic. One of the extremely important reasons for the gradual decline in the
road quality is the fact that carriers do not comply with the maximum
authorised payload and permissible axle loads, despite the fact that the law
precisely determines the values of those parameters.
The Regulation of the
Minister of Infrastructure of 31 December 2002 on the technical conditions of
vehicles and the extent of their obligatory equipment in conjunction with the
changes introduced by the Regulation of the Minister of Infrastructure and
Development of December 30 2013 precisely define the permissible axle load
value and the maximum authorised payload of a truck, depending on axle
configuration, and in the Regulation of the Minister of Transport and Maritime
Economy of March 2 1999 regarding road classes (7 classes – denoted as
A, S, GP, G, Z, L, D). In Poland,
allowable static axle loads of 80, 100, or 115 kN are accepted depending on the public road
category. In reality, given vehicular traffic, dynamic loads exerted on
pavements is much greater than static, and the impact of heavy vehicles on road
pavement is more aggressive than previously assumed [15].
Despite the regulations
in effect, a significant proportion of heavy goods vehicles do not comply with
the rigours of allowable axle loads. Overloaded trucks cause great losses for
the economy of Poland. According to GDDKiA,
approximately 30% of heavy goods vehicles on Polish roads are overloaded, which
results in losses in road infrastructure ranging from PLN 6 to 8 billion
annually (this cost is comparable to the cost of construction of approximately
300 kilometres of an expressway).
Standard technical
indicators of road infrastructure maintenance refer mainly to the description
of the technical parameters of the pavement and subgrade [7,8,13].
Technical efficiency and effectiveness of road maintenance (including highway
landing strips) are described by such indicators as:
- roughness of the
pavement and its anti-skid properties (the main factor influencing traffic
safety),
- longitudinal and
transverse evenness of the road (a parameter affecting driving comfort and
safety),
- wheel load capacity of the
road - a parameter ensuring the durability of individual road layers during the
assumed period of pavement use. The factor inseparably related to the pavement
thickness and its material parameters.
3. EFFECTIVENESS OF HIGHWAY LANDING STRIP CONSTRUCTION
One of the non-invasive methods of
learning about the nature of the impact of operational loads caused by aircraft
on airport pavements is the strength analysis of the surface using the finite
element method (FEM). The main objective of this study is to present general assumptions and
possibilities of the practical application of a numerical method for assessing
the strength of concrete airport pavements used for the construction of highway
landing strips. An alternative verification of the surface in relation to
empirical methods was presented on the basis of the developed universal
calculation algorithm based on FEM [2].
In this presented work,
calculations were made for the C-130 Hercules aircraft (Fig. 2a) being potentially the largest military transport
aircraft that can perform air operations on highway landing strips.
The basic strength
condition in cement concrete pavement design, using the Westergaard
method, is the comparison of the stresses occurring within the slab in its
centre, at the edge, and in the corner with the permissible stress values.
(1)
Operational loads in the
numerical model were described assuming that the surface is statically loaded
with the maximum take-off weight exerted by a Hercules C-130 military aircraft,
by assigning specific values of pressure applied to the upper layers of the
slab in the locations resulting from the geometry of the aircraft landing gear
footprint (Fig.2b). The principle of selecting wheel
tracks assumed was based on the finite element mesh. In the finite element
method, in the case of a 2D slab model, we obtained
the components of a flat state of stress on the upper and lower surface of the
slab, whereas in the case of a 3D model, we obtained the components of the
spatial stress state in the entire slab.
Fig. 2. Hercules C-130
aircraft landing on a highway landing strip (a), geometry of Hercules C-130
wheel tracks (b)
In the analyses, the
following values were assumed:
-
slab dimensions 5x5 m,
- concrete slab thickness h=0,30 m,
- modulus of concrete elasticity E=32 GPa,
-
poisson's ratio v = 0,17.
Basic aircraft data necessary for
conducting the analysis:
- take-off weight Mmin/max=79380/120000 kg,
- maximum take-off weight Gc=120 · 104 N,
- weight on main lading gear strut:
(2)
Own weight of the slab and thermal
loads were excluded from the analysis.
The aircraft has a
tricycle landing gear with dual nose gear wheels (Fig. 2). The construction and
tires allow the operation of the aircraft from unpaved airstrips. Main landing
gear wheels with 1005 x 280 tires and 0.72 MPa pressure. Nose gear wheel with
380 x 150 tires and 0.54 MPa pressure. A substitute area of pressure exerted by
one wheel of the aircraft was adopted for analysis: Fz=2400
cm2, which corresponds to the area of a
rectangle formed with 24 elements of the slab. For the tandem-type main landing
struts, that corresponds to 48 elements of the slab.
The analysis was performed for
three load variants:
- VARIANT I – the
slab was loaded in the centre with one main landing gear strut (two-wheeled,
tandem),
- VARIANT II – the
slab was loaded at the edge with two main landing gear struts,
- VARIANT II – the
slab was loaded in the corner with two main landing gear struts.
Taking into consideration its dimension
relations (500:30), the slab analysed should be
included in the medium thickness class. In order to determine displacements and
stresses in concrete airport pavements under static loads with the selected
aircraft type, the MSC.NASTRAN for WINDOWS
system was used [3].
The model used 7,500 eight-node solid elements
of 0,1 x 0,1 x 0,1 [m] each, and 2601 elastic GAP type
elements. Sample calculations were performed for the three load variants
described above, for both airport ramp models. The results of slab deflections
were fully consistent both for the 2D and 3D models.
The maximum deflection values calculated for the 3D model for all load variants
are shown in Table 1. As can be observed there, the value of the maximum slab
deflection depends strongly on the location where the load is exerted and
varies from 0.99 mm for the strut in the centre of
the slab to 3.34 mm for the load in the corner. Selected distributions of
deflection values are presented as contour plans (Fig. 3). By analysing the contour plans of the deflections, it can be
noticed that in particular load variants, certain slab areas break away from
the subgrade (the displacement values are positive, marked by the red colour of the contours). In the first load variant, the
corners of the slab rise (Fig. 3/1 and Fig. 3/2), in the second variant –
the slab areas adjacent to the edges perpendicular to the loaded edge rise
(Fig. 3/3); in the third variant with the maximum deflection, the right-hand
side half of the plate loses contact with the subgrade (Fig. 3/4), the zero
contour line runs approximately through the centre of
the green field on a contour plan.
As a result of the
static analysis, FEM gives a complete set of information about the state of
displacements and stresses within the model. Considering the specific
properties of the material from which the airport pavement slab should be made
– very high compressive strength and about ten times lower tensile
strength, a hypothesis of the maximum tensile stress was assumed as the
strength criterion. Distributions of the maximum principal stress on the upper
or lower surface of the slab for selected load examples are presented in the
contour plans shown in the illustrations (Fig. 3/5-8). When comparing the
values obtained for both models (2D, 3D), a very low
discrepancy can be found – the differences do not exceed two per cent. It
should be noted, however, that the allowable stress values do not exceed the
stresses for the assumed brand of concrete [3].
In Table 1, the maximum
deflections and the maximum principal stress values of the slab calculated for
the doweled slab model for all load variants are given for comparison with the undoweled slab. As observed, the value of the maximum deflection of
the doweled plate, similar to that for a slab without dowels, depends on the
load application location, but the deflection value for the corner and edge
variant (about three times smaller) has decreased significantly. It is worth
noting in the case of doweling that the stress values have decreased
considerably and, as opposed to the undoweled slab,
they show smaller discrepancies of the results.
Tab. 1
List of maximum deflections and maximum principal stresses
for
the Hercules C-130 aircraft
|
Model |
VARIANT |
Location of slab load |
smax max. principal stress MPa |
z max. deflection mm |
|
Hercules C-130 – undoweled slab |
||||
|
|
VARIANT I |
CENTRE |
4.37 |
0.99 |
|
VARIANT II |
EDGE |
5.64 |
2.76 |
|
|
VARIANT III |
CENTRE |
6.62 |
3.34 |
|
|
|
VARIANT I |
CENTRE |
4.37 |
0.99 |
|
VARIANT II |
EDGE |
5.77 |
3.01 |
|
|
VARIANT III |
CORNER |
6.65 |
5.70 |
|
|
Hercules C-130 – doweled slab |
||||
|
|
VARIANT I |
CENTRE |
3.23 |
1.06 |
|
VARIANT II |
EDGE |
3.36 |
1.27 |
|
|
VARIANT III |
CORNER |
3.79 |
1.78 |
|
A sample analysis of a
single airport slab with free, undoweled, edges
without considering their mutual cooperation showed the necessity of doweling
the pavement. As part of follow-up activities, more works and theoretical research on
increasing the efficiency of technologies for the construction of future
highway landing strips should be conducted.
4. CONCLUSIONS
Presently, highway landing strips are characterised by a different specificity and they undoubtedly
combine to a certain extent functions related to air and road transport. They
are still separate, straight, and long road sections, which from the drivers'
perspective, are sometimes hard to notice, as what distinguishes a given road
section as a highway landing strip is below the roadway level. The pavement
construction of contemporary highway landing strips is completely different
from typical roads. Potential loads from military aircraft force strengthen the properties of the pavement making it better.
Fig. 3. Slab deflection
distribution (items 1÷4) m and the distribution of maximum principal
stresses within the slab 5÷8 (items 5÷8) Pa
Since 28th May 2003 when two MiG-21 aircraft landed on the
Kliniska highway landing strip, no exercise at highway landing strips has been conducted in Poland. There is still no reason for announcing the reactivation
of the concept of using this type of infrastructure, despite the fact that a
completely new highway landing strip, situated on the A4 highway between
Tarnów and Dębica has been commissioned. It is hard to find
investment plans for the construction of further highway landing strips, which
in the event of a war or crisis situation could be used as temporary field
aerodromes. Strategic significance and the role of highway landing strips in
potential conflicts may, however, be classified as secret. However, analyses of
very faint possibilities of concealing this type of characteristic elements of
road infrastructure in the 21st century point out to
the fact that the possibilities of using highway landing strips in Poland are
very limited. The second factor to take into consideration when selecting a
location for the planned new highway landing strip is the increase of their
efficiency and duration of use by applying technology based on rigid pavements.
Full analysis of the results and comparing them in the context of other
concrete surfaces, including non-reinforced pavements and doweled pavements in
connection with the introduction of ever higher operational loads and
increasing traffic, confirms the need to use new, more durable and safe,
pavements, and, involving the use of modern
calculation methods to determine their optimum design.
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Received 03.10.2019; accepted in revised form 21.11.2019
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