Influencing depth under aircraft loads of runway

In view of the current situation that the relationship among the influencing depth, the pavement structural parameters, the configuration of landing gear and take-off ground speed was not taken into consideration by the present rigid pavement, a finite element model of 45 m×15 m×10 m was built by means of the ANSYS software. The influencing depth of B737-800 under dynamic loads in some conditions with different parameters, including the thickness and modulus of surface and base and soil matrix layers, was calculated. Compared with other 4 aircraft types, the results were used to analyze the influence of the configuration of landing gear. At the same time, the dynamic curve related to the influencing depth during the period of B737-800's take-off was obtained. The results show that the influencing depth decreases linearly with the increase of thickness and modulus of surface and base layers, whereas increases quadratically with the increase of modulus of soil matrix which is most sensitive to the influencing depth. Besides, the configuration of landing gear makes a great contribution to the influencing depth. During the take-off period, the influencing depth changes non-linearly with a slight increase at the beginning and then a sharp decrease. The study provides the theoretical basis and reference to the selection of the structural parameters of pavement and maintenance of pavement in airports.