FAARFIELD — The Complete Guide: FAA Thickness Design for Airport Pavements

FAARFIELD is the airport pavement design program of the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). It accompanies advisory circular AC 150/5320-6G and is used in practice to design pavements for runways, taxiways and aprons.

FAARFIELD — Airport Pavement Design

FAA (Federal Aviation Administration)

The FAA’s official thickness-design program for asphalt and concrete airport pavements.

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What you get

The real aircraft mix — aircraft type, take-off weight and annual departures, instead of a single design load.
Cumulative damage — summing each aircraft’s contribution to pavement damage.
Flexible and rigid pavements — asphalt and concrete, including stabilised base layers.
Overlay design — on top of an existing pavement.
Strength reporting — ACR/PCR calculation under the current reporting method.

How it computes

For flexible pavements the program uses layered elastic analysis, and for rigid pavements a three-dimensional finite element analysis. It finds the thickness needed so that cumulative damage over the design life stays within the allowable limit. The download from the FAA site is free, with no registration and no time limit, and it runs on Windows. On a project outside the US, check what the local authority requires.