Studying the hydroplaning behaviour is crucial for enhancing the safety of aviation during the landing stage. Due to the special nature of the aviation field, such as high aircraft velocity, wheel load and operating frequency, accurate numerical simulation is considered an effective method for investigating the tire hydroplaning behaviour. In this study, a fluid–solid coupling model was established using the coupled Eulerian–Lagrangian algorithm to analyze the hydroplaning behaviour. To reveal the influences of factors such as the runway texture, slip ratio, velocity and water-film thickness on tire hydroplaning, some parameters such as the skid number, water distribution, and tire inflation pressure were extracted. Moreover, the real pavement textures of stone mastic asphalt, an open-graded friction course, and asphalt concrete were determined to construct a real runway model and water-film thicknesses of 3, 7, and 10 mm were selected to study their effects on aircraft hydroplaning. The numerical simulation results were verified by calculating the braking distance and conducting trailer test, and the results prove that the numerical model can be applied for the multifactor analysis of tire hydroplaning behaviour.

Effective traffic management requires use of monitoring technologies to extract traffic parameters that describe the characteristics of vehicles. This article presents a vibration-based traffic monitoring system to detect traffic parameters comprehensively, including the three major desired characteristics of vehicles: position, speed, and category. Using distributed optical technology, this system can monitor traffic parameters on a large scale. Firstly, distributed optical fiber was embedded into pavement as a series of vibration sensors to collect pavement vibration information. Then, a signal processing method, based on wavelet transform and short-time energy, was applied to reconstruct vibration signals for vibration features extraction. Estimation methods of traffic parameters were proposed based on the vibration characteristics in time, space and frequency domain. To evaluate the performance of this traffic monitoring system, a prototype system was installed on a highway in Shanghai, China. This system shows good accuracy in position locating (± 14.639 cm), category classification (86.98 %), and speed estimation (± 3.046 km/h). Meanwhile, results indicate this system provides a better monitoring performance at high speed.

This study focused on the rutting characteristics of two typical hot-mix asphalt (HMA) overlays in airfield composite pavement under high tire pressure: asphalt concrete (AC) and stone mastic asphalt (SMA). To fulfill this purpose, accelerated pavement testing (APT) was implemented on the instrumented test field, and a series of laboratory tests, including density test, Hamburg wheel tracking test (HWTT), and uniaxial penetration test, were conducted based on 38 field drilled cores. The results from APT indicated that the shear flow was the main cause of rutting in the airfield composite pavement and the rutting only occurred within the HMA overlay. No densification was found from these two overlays. SMA overlay had more consistent rutting performance, higher shear strength, less uplift deformation and rut depth, and, therefore, higher antirutting potential compared with AC overlay. Furthermore, the bottom strain of SMA overlay was smaller at the beginning, but it increased as the loading cycles increase. Additionally, the rutting accumulation could be divided into two stages, and the first stage contributed more than 54% deformation to the total rutting. Tire pressure played a key role in the rutting of HMA overlay, and therefore higher tire pressure was recommended when studying airfield composite pavement’s rutting. Finally, the SMA overlay had cost advantage because of its longer service life.

An online monitoring system was recently built to acquire the inner condition and response of the runway pavement at Shanghai Pudong International Airport. Seven sections were instrumented to detect the responses of pavement when aircraft were taking off, landing, and taxiing. Sensors used in the system include strain gauges, multi-depth deflect to meters, temperature sensors, earth pressure cells, moisture sensors and three laser distance sensors for aircraft position. Most of the sensors are fiber-optic Bragg grating-based sensors, and some are electronic signal-based sensors used to improve the reliability and variety of the data. Instruments are divided into dynamic and static parts, which are aimed at measuring pavement responses caused by aircraft load and environmental influence. The instruments are all fiber optic cable connected within the airport area for radio frequency control. This paper presents: (1) the layout of sensors; (2) verification tests of the instruments; (3) process of installation; (4) method of data collection; and (5) initial responses test of pavement.

To improve the energy harvesting efficiency of the piezoelectric device, a stack units-based structure was developed and verified. Factors such as stress distribution, load resistance, loads, and loading times influencing the piezoelectric properties were investigated using theoretical analysis and experimental tests. The results show that the unit number has a negative relationship with the generated energy and the stress distribution has no influence on the power generation of the piezoelectric unit array. However, with a small stress difference, units in a parallel connection can obtain high energy conversion efficiency. Additionally, loaded with the matched impedance of 275.0 kΩ at 10.0 kN and 10.0 Hz, the proposed device reached a maximum output power of 84.3 mW, which is enough to supply the low-power sensors. Moreover, the indoor load test illustrates that the electrical performance of the piezoelectric device was positively correlated with the simulated loads when loaded with matched resistance. Furthermore, the electrical property remained stable after the fatigue test of 100,000 cyclic loads. Subsequently, the field study confirmed that the developed piezoelectric device had novel piezoelectric properties with an open-circuit voltage of 190 V under an actual tire load, and the traffic parameters can be extracted from the voltage waveform.