High tire pressure test

This downloadable document is the version-1 of the HTPT technical report. The reader will note it is planned to establish a version-2 that will include complementary analysis

This report describes an outdoor full-scale test led by Airbus S.A.S in partnership with the French authorities DGAC-STAC, LCPC, LRPC-T, MICHELIN and VANCOUVER2 to improve experimental and theoretical knowledge related to the effects of aircraft internal tire inflation pressure on the behavior of and damage to flexible pavement.

Since some modern aircraft have tire pressures exceeding 15 bar, the tests focus on pressures from 15 bar to 17.5 bar.

The experimental pavement located on the Toulouse-Blagnac airport in France includes up to seven different test sections, representative of current airfield flexible pavement world-wide. Variant parameters from one section to another are thickness of AC surface layer and its performance in respect of rutting, and surface treatment as grooving. The structure has been designed according to the French airport pavement design method, for 10,000 passes of B747-400 gear.

The aircraft simulation vehicle drives four dual-wheel gears sufficiently spaced enough in order to prevent from any interaction between them, making it possible to test two different tire pressures (15 and 17.5 bar) and two weights per wheel (ultimate weights, 28.7 and 33.2 tons) simultaneously.

The seven test sections are instrumented to measure resilient strains, and resilient and permanent displacements (rutting).

This report presents the obtained results and their scope.