Characterization of Compressive Properties of Foamed Concrete Used for Aircraft Arrestment

Engineered Material Arresting System (EMAS) is a kind of ground facilities used to mitigate safety hazard caused by aircraft overrunning runway. Adequately characterizing mechanical properties of the foamed concrete used in EMAS is important to drag force modeling and model verification. Conventional test methods for material's compressive properties are inapplicable to the foamed concrete owing to the uniqueness in material's compression behaviors and compression conditions present in the arrestment. Compression conditions present in the arrestment as well as material's compression behaviors under similar conditions were investigated. A special test method, dual penetration, was proposed for testing compressive properties of foamed concrete particularly for arrestment utilization. Compressive profile obtained by the dual penetration method well characterizes the material's compressive properties and hence meets the demand of modeling. Crushing of the material beneath the punch head during the penetration test is highly localized. As a result, displacement instead of strain would be used for extension of compression. Elasticity of the material is adverse to the drag force and therefore should be controlled to a very low level.