FAARFIELD 1.

300

- Computer Program for Airport Pavement Thickness Design

FAARFIELD 1.300 is a 32-bit version and requires Windows XP or later.

Uninstalling previous versions of FAARFIELD is advised.
Setup requires the following files:
Setup.Exe
FAARFIELDSetup.msi
Copy all of the files into a temporary directory on a hard disk. Then run setup.exe. Setup can also
be run from the distribution disk.
The Alternate SG check box allows a flexible pavement design (or Life) to be run based on the
vertical strain at the top of the layer below the arrow on the left side of the pavement structure.
The procedure is: 1) get into the Structure window, 2) check the Alternate SG box at the bottom
left of the structure, 3) press the Modify button, 4) click to the left of the picture of the structure
(in the margin) to move the arrow so that it sits to the left of the layer above the layer where the
vertical strain criterion will be applied, 5) return to design mode, 6) if a design is run then the
layer pointed to by the arrow will change thickness to satisfy the strain criterion in the layer
below, 7) if Life is run then the life for the strain criterion in the layer below will be calculated.
See the help file under Running the Program - Options for information on Batch, No HMA CDF,
and No Out Files.
FAARFIELD is provided to accompany Advisory Circular 150/5320-6E, Airport Pavement
Design and Evaluation. FAARFIELD may be updated from time to time, so it is advisable for
users to check the web page (http://www.airporttech.tc.faa.gov/download/) regularly for updates.
FAARFIELD includes a 3-dimensional finite element model (FEM) for rigid pavement response
calculations. The use of 3-dimensional FEM allows the direct computation of edge stresses under
aircraft gear loads and eliminates the need to estimate the edge stress based on the interior load
as was done in LEDFAA. The flexible design procedure remains unchanged from LEDFAA 1.3,
except for the addition of an automated base design feature.
FAARFIELD 1.300 includes the Airbus A380-800 and A380-800F aircraft in the airplane
library. The treatment of these airplane types in FAARFIELD 1.300 is identical to LEDFAA 1.3,
except that for rigid pavement design, the computation of edge stresses for both wing and body
gears is performed by 3-dimensional finite element analysis. For additional information on A380
treatment in the design procedure, please refer to LEDFAA 1.3 documentation.
Please note that the default setting for data output files (*.out) is for them not to be written.
Double click on the gray area of the Structure Window and uncheck "No Out Files" for the data
files to be written to the working directory, or uncheck No Out Files from the Options window.
A number of FAA workshops are planned to accompany the review process. The dates and
locations of the workshops will be announced.

FAARFIELD v. 1.203 July 31, 2008:

FAARFIELD v. 1.203 replaces all previous versions of FAARFIELD. In particular,
FAARFIELD v. 1.203 replaces FAARFIELD v. 1.100 that accompanied Draft AC 150/5320-6E.
Major changes implemented in FAARFIELD version 1.203 are as follows:
The pavement thickness is now computed for constant tire contact area. Changing the
airplane gross weight causes the tire pressure to be adjusted to maintain the contact area.
In previous versions the tire pressure was held constant.
Additional XML (Extensible Markup Language) support has been added. Job files are now in
XML format. In addition, the external airplane library file has been converted to XML
format. FAARFIELD automatically detects job files or external airplane libray files in the
previous format and converts them to the new XML format, moving the original files to a
subdirectory old_job_files in the working directory. All subsequent changes will be made
only to the XML files.
A function to display CDF files graphically has been added.
An enhanced Airplane Data window now displays the gear coordinates using a mouse-over
function. The Airplane Data window now displays x and y scales.
Support for PCC over rubblized base has been added.
Hitting Alt-O in the Pavement Structure, Airplane, or Airplane Data windows brings up the
Options window.
The word Aircraft has been replaced with Airplane or Airplanes as appropriate.
Errors that prevented the writing, saving and editing of Notes files in previous versions have
been fixed.
The program now opens in the same system of units that was used in the previous session.
Previously, the program always opened in the default (English) system of units.
The external airplane file was cleaned of unnecessary airplanes, and now contains the same
airplane data as the COMFAA external airplane library.
For files generated by the Save XML command, the file extension was changed to
*.DES.xml (rather than just *.xml). This allows the design information files to be
distinguished from the *.JOB.xml files and any other files in XML format.
The program no longer generates the pltdata.dat file. This function has been replaced by a
separate utility program called NIKEPLOT.

A bug in previous versions sometimes caused dialog boxes to hide behind the Structure
window, requiring the user to terminate the session. This bug has been fixed.
A new internal pass-to-coverage ratio (P/C) computational routine has been fully
implemented.
The design information summary now reports P/C and CDF information for both Subgrade
CDF and HMA CDF (if the latter is performed) in separate tables.
FAARFIELD v. 1.204 November 24, 2008:
FAARFIELD v. 1.204 replaces all previous versions of FAARFIELD.
Changes implemented in FAARFIELD version 1.204 are as follows:
Corrected a problem with date formatting that occurred when some Windows regional and
language settings other than English (United States ) were selected.
Corrected a bug that caused a run time error when reading and converting certain LEDFAA
job files.
In previous versions, not all the evaluation points were included in strain evaluation for A380
and B747-400 airplanes for flexible pavements. This has been corrected.
In previous versions, the rigid pavement design procedure terminated after 5 iterations
regardless of whether the program changed the subbase layer thickness in the course of
the design. This could result in prematurely terminated designs that do not meet the
CDF=1 design criterion. In version 1.204, the algorithm is changed so that the iteration
count automatically restarts if the program changes the rigid pavement subbase thickness.
FAARFIELD v. 1.300 February 3, 2009:

FAARFIELD v. 1.300 replaces all previous versions of FAARFIELD.

Changes implemented in FAARFIELD version 1.300 are as follows:
1. Corrected a problem with printing Notes from Notes window.
2. Corrected a problem with saving changed % Annual Growth in Airplane Window to a
job file.
3.

Corrected a problem when running automatic base design for flexible pavements and
stopping when minimum thickness for subbase was reached.

4.

Enforcing 5 inches for stabilized base thickness instead of 4 inches, when in mix are
airplanes with gross taxi weight higher than 100,000 lbs.

FAARFIELD v. 1.302 March 12, 2009:

FAARFIELD v. 1.302 replaces all previous versions of FAARFIELD.
Changes implemented in FAARFIELD version 1.302 are as follows:
1. Fixed a bug that caused a crash in the 3D mesh generation phase for certain subbase layer
thicknesses.

FAARFIELD v. 1.305 September 30, 2010:

FAARFIELD v. 1.305 replaces all previous versions of FAARFIELD.
Changes implemented in FAARFIELD version 1.305 are as follows:
1. Version 1.305 is compatible with 64-bit operating systems including Windows Vista and
Windows 7.
2. Fortran programs NIKE3D and Ingrid were recompiled using Intel(R) Visual Fortran
Compiler Integration for Microsoft Visual Studio 2005.