Projects

The Airport Pavement Structural Design System (APSDS) is the leading edge pavement design package for Airport Pavements.

This page introduces some of our clients and details of how they have used APSDS on major pavement design and rehabilitation projects.

Major aircraft manufacturers, Airbus Industrie and British Aerospace Airbus, used APSDS to design landing gear configurations for the new A380 large aircraft.

Fifth runway at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol

Schipol 5th Runway

Schiphol is the world’s fourth busiest International Airport.

APSDS was used for the design of the new fifth runway. Total project cost is estimated to be €340 million.  Construction commenced in early 2002 and was completed in February 2003.

The project presented many challenges to the designers. Loading included all current wide-body aircraft and future New Large Aircraft.

For further details on how APSDS was used for the pavement design, read Dr. Arian de Bondt’s article.

For more general background on the project, see the Airport Technology article.

Other Projects

Leading German consultants, Heiden Labor GmbH, have used APSDS on major design projects including:

Airbus Facility: Hamburg-Finkenwerder Extension “Muehlenberger Loch”

Airbus Deutschland GmbH had to extend its premises at Hamburg-Finkenwerder for the production of the New Large Aircraft A380. The pavement was designed for the use of the A380 and service/maintenance vehicles.

Contact: Knut Johannsen.

Airbus Facility: Hamburg-Finkenwerder, Runway

The structure of the existing Runway at Hamburg-Finkenwerder had to be evaluated because of the new A380 using this Runway. The design calculations were performed using APSDS taking into account the A380, a number of different single aisles aircrafts and smaller airplanes.

Contact: Knut Johannsen.

Airport Frankfurt/Main: Reconstruction of Runway North

To evaluate the existing pavement prior to reconstruction design calculations were neccessary, which were performed with APSDS.

Contact: Knut Johannsen.

Leading Danish consultants, RAMBOLL, have used APSDS on major design and rehabilitation projects:

Copenhagen Airport – Rehabilitation of Taxiway C

APSDS was used for the design of the rehabilitated pavement structure of taxiway C in Copenhagen Airport (among the largest in Europe with some 18 million passengers yearly).

Copenhagen Airport – Structural Servicelife of Runways

APSDS was used to evaluate the structural servicelife of the three runways and major taxiways at Copenhagen Airport, as it was assessed that other conventional design programs would not be able to form a satisfactory basis for the evaluation.

Billund Airport, Denmark – Expansion of Billund Airport

APSDS was used for the design of runways (4.3 km), deicerplatform (7,000 m2) aprons (50,000 m2) at Billund Airport (the second largest airport in Denmark with some 2 million passengers yearly).

Leading International airport consultants, NACO, Netherlands Airport Pavement Consultants B.V., have used APSDS on many major airport pavement design and rehabilitation projects:

Amsterdam Airport Schiphol – The Netherlands

see further details above.

Cairo International Airport – Egypt

Upgrading of runway 05R-23L (4000 x 60 m) and associated taxiways. Loading included all current wide-body aircraft and future New Large Aircraft. Overlay with PMA on existing asphalt structure. The upgraded runway is operational since April 1998

Zagreb Airport – Croatia

Upgrading of parallel taxiway for current wide-body aircraft. Overlay with PMA on existing CRCP. Upgraded taxiway is operational since July 1997.

Luxor Airport – Egypt

Rehabilitation of runway (3000 x 45 m) and associated taxiways. Loading included all current wide-body aircraft. PMA on existing asphalt structure. Execution in 1999-2000.

Muan Airport – Korea

Design for prebid documents for new pavements of runway, taxiways and apron. Loading included all current wide-body aircraft. Conventional asphalt on cement treated base. Construction planned in 2000.

Kharkheer Airport – Saudi Arabia

New runway (3000 x 45 m), taxiways and apron. Loading included civil and military aircraft. Construction in 1999-2000.

Jeddah International Airport – Saudi Arabia

Expansion plan.

Sofia International Airport – Bulgaria

New runway.

Other projects include:

Leonardo da Vinci International Airport – Rome, Italy 

Consultants: Siproma srl

Johannesburg International Airport – Johannesburg, South Africa

Consultants: Stewart Scott, Inc.

Container Terminals

For further details on how APSDS has been used to design container terminal pavements see:

Ashdod North Port Development

Project cost for the new Ashdod North Port in Israel is about a billion dollars.

Pavement alternatives studied with APSDS considered the lateral wander of the various vehicles and the frequency distribution of container weights.

Port of Brisbane

APSDS was used for a proposed industrial hardstand at a Port of Brisbane container terminal in Queensland.

The study included asphalt surfaced and interlocking concrete block pavement alternatives. Some 11 axle load scenarios were used for the 3 vehicle types. The pavement designs included reductions in pavement thickness to allow for vehicle wander.

APSDS has been superseded by HIPAVE:

New software for intermodal container terminals

HIPAVE (Heavy Industrial PAVEment design) is for the mechanistic analysis and design of flexible pavements subjected to the extremely heavy wheel loads associated with freight handling vehicles in industrial facilities, in particular, intermodal container terminals. It is designed to conveniently model each combination of vehicle model and container load and to combine the damage using the Cumulative Damage Factor concept.

click here for further details.