One of the factors that affects the safety of flight operations is to maintain the airport infrastructure in an appropriate condition, due to importance of proper infrastructure management, including funds and human resources management in particular. Currently applicable methods for determination of surface condition are mainly based on visual assessment of surface deterioration. An innovative approach to assessing the cement concrete airport pavement's technical condition based on the APCI (Airfield Pavement Condition Index) is presented in the article. The method of APCI index determination is based not only on the visual assessment of the airfield pavement's surface condition and the calculation of its deterioration, but also includes parameter of load capacity, evenness, roughness and tensile strength of the surface layer. The presented method can be used as a tool for forecasting the technical condition of cement concrete airfield pavements in the context of planning funds for future maintenance purposes. The impact of considering individual model parameters on the value of APCI index, basing on the results of field tests carried out as part of military airports inspections was presented.

The paper presents a numerical study of an aircraft wheel impacting on a flexible landing surface. The proposed 3D model simulates the behaviour of flexible runway pavement during the landing phase. This model was implemented in a finite element code in order to investigate the impact of repeated cycles of loads on pavement response.

In the model, a multi-layer pavement structure was considered. In addition, the asphalt layer (HMA) was assumed to follow a viscoelastoplastic behaviour.

The results demonstrate the capability of the model in predicting the permanent deformation distribution in the asphalt layer.

Natural airfield pavements divide into soil and turf pavements. Turf pavement is a soil pavement covered with a developed grass layer that reduce soil moisture level, thus increasing its' resistance and extending exploitation period. Natural airfield pavements are formed through appropriate ground preparation. This pavement should be constructed in such a way as to have sufficient load-bearing capacity, which directly affects the safety of flight operations by aircraft. The current research indicates that a significant part of natural airfield pavements in Poland does not meet the requirements for load bearing capacity and require reinforcing. The article provides an example of reinforcing the natural airfield pavement with a system of geogrids. The paper describes what research was performed in order to measure the load-bearing capacity of natural airfield pavements and analyses the obtained results.