Braking Availability Tester for Realistic Assessment of Aircraft Landing Distance on Winter Runways

This paper is concerned with the development of a new measurement device for the realistic assessment of braking capability of landing airplanes for winter runways. The conventional and current practice of runway condition monitoring has been focused on identifying the maximum tire-pavement frictional drag (μ value) and often neglected the characteristics of actual aircraft braking systems as well as the comprehensive effects coming from various factors such as deformable contaminants on the winter runway. The braking availability tester (BAT) proposed in this paper is designed to take a different approach for the realistic assessment of braking availability of landing airplanes. The main idea of the BAT is to mimic the braking operation of actual aircrafts as closely as possible by incorporating the same brake mechanism and antiskid braking system (ABS) used in existing aircrafts. In doing so, the BAT also incorporates a suite of sensors for monitoring the status of braking operation in real time. This paper details the design concepts and operation principles of the BAT. Preliminary test results are also presented to verify the main functionality of the BAT.