What's New
APSDS 5.0 now released!
A brief summary of the new features is given here.
New calibration for APSDS 5.0
With this new calibration, pavement thicknesses determined by APSDS 5.0 are significantly less than those obtained using our previous calibration and the FAA design software, FAARFIELD.
Click here for more details and sample designs for A380-800, B747-400 and B777-300 aircraft.
Support for Windows 7
Mincad Systems is pleased to announce our commitment to Windows 7 by supporting this new operating system.
The following packages fully support Windows 7:
The latest version of CIRCLY 5.0 is Version 5.0s (25 October 2011).
The latest version of APSDS is 5.0e (3 August 2011).
The latest version of HIPAVE is 5.0n (2 August 2011).
CIRCLY, APSDS and HIPAVE Workshops - 2012
The Centre for Pavement Engineering Education (CPEE) will be presenting the following Short Courses/Workshops this year:
Mechanistic Pavement Design - CIRCLY
This one day course provides delegates with an understanding of the theoretical basis of mechanistic pavement design methods and is a hands-on course with each student having access to a PC. The course is offered as a single day for those who are well versed and practiced in pavement design, or who have completed any of the past CPEE two day Pavement Design courses, or for those who are attending the current Pavement Design – Principles & Practice 2 day course in 2012. Alternatively, limited places are available for Delegates to Register to undertake it as day 2 of the CPEE course Pavement Design- Advanced, provided they are well versed and practiced in pavement design, or have completed any of the CPEE two day Pavement Design courses.
The course provides an introduction to flexible
pavement design models using
CIRCLY
5.0 focusing on the
Austroads
Guide to Pavement Technology - Part 2: Pavement Structural
Design (AGPT02/10).
The workshop will also include an introduction to heavy duty
pavement design for container terminals and airports.
Heavy Duty Pavement Design Workshop (HIPAVE / APSDS) <<< to be scheduled for 2012 - Register your details below >>>
This one day course focuses on computer aided design of
heavy duty flexible pavements using
HIPAVE and
APSDS (Airport Pavement Structural Design System).
The emphasis is on pavements subjected to the extremely heavy
wheel loads associated with airports and freight handling vehicles in
industrial facilities, such as intermodal container terminals.
This is a hands-on workshop with each student having their own
PC.
Pavement Design - Advanced
This intensive two day short course, which incorporates the Mechanistic Pavement Design – CIRCLY course (the second day), is ideal for engineers and engineering technologists working for federal, state, or local authorities, consultants and contractors who already have a sound awareness and understanding of the basic principles & practices of pavement design.
This 2 day course provides participants with knowledge of the principles of flexible pavement design, as per the current Austroads Guide to Pavement Technology - Part 2: Pavement Structural Design (AGPT02/10).
These courses are recognized by Engineers Australia for Continuing Professional Development (CPD) purposes.
2012 Workshop Calendar
Click here to see the 2012 Calendar.
Note: The CIRCLY and Heavy Duty Pavement Design Workshops are "hands-on" experiences with each student having their own PC - so 16 places only.
Additional Pavement related short courses are offered through The Australian Asphalt Pavement Association's (AAPA) Training Centre. A full list of the courses on offer can be found on the AAPA website.
Register your details below if you are interested in attending a Workshop and would like to be notified when further details are available.
Support for Windows Vista
Mincad Systems is pleased to announce our commitment to Windows Vista by supporting this new operating system. Windows Vista is a step forward toward increasing the security of Windows.
The following packages fully support Windows Vista:
The latest version of CIRCLY 5.0 is Version 5.0s (25 October 2011).
The latest version of APSDS is 5.0e (3 August 2011).
The latest version of HIPAVE is 5.0n (2 August 2011).
New software for intermodal container terminals
HIPAVE (Heavy Industrial PAVEment design) is for the mechanistic analysis and design of flexible pavements subjected to the extremely heavy wheel loads associated with freight handling vehicles in industrial facilities, in particular, intermodal container terminals. It is designed to conveniently model each combination of vehicle model and container load and to combine the damage using the Cumulative Damage Factor concept.
click here for further details.
New Paper on Current Issues for Mechanistic Pavement Design
Wardle, L.J., Youdale, G. and Rodway, B. (2003). Current Issues For Mechanistic Pavement Design. in 21st ARRB and 11th REAAA Conference, Cairns, Australia, 18 - 23 May, 2003, Session S32, ARRB Transport Research.
This paper discusses four issues currently faced by designers using mechanistic software such as CIRCLY and APSDS to produce pavement designs that are consistent and appropriate. The issues are:
- the choice of appropriate failure criteria
- the treatment of vehicle wander
- negative vertical subgrade strains that can lead to anomalous design results for some pavement geometries
- design of asphalt-surfaced granular pavements,
The first three issues primarily impact the design of heavy duty pavements. The last issue relates to proposed changes to the Austroads (1992) Pavement Design Guide as published in the 2001 Draft Guide (Austroads, 2001).
 Acrobat
version |
 Web
page version |
New fifth runway at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol now open
Schiphol is the world’s fourth busiest International Airport.
APSDS was used for the design of the new fifth runway. Total project cost is estimated to be €340 million. Construction commenced in early 2002 and opened for operation on 20 February 2003.
The project presented many challenges to the designers.
Loading included all current wide-body aircraft and future New Large
Aircraft.
For further details on how APSDS was used for the pavement design, read Dr. Arian de Bondt's article.
For more general background on the project, see the Airport Technology article.
APSDS customer, Airbus, on track to launch world’s largest airliner
APSDS customer, Airbus, is on track to launch the A380, formerly known as the A3XX, in the spring of 2006.
The A380 entered production in January 2002 at Airbus’
Nantes site in France.
Airbus have a total of 97 firm orders and commitments from customers
including FedEx, Air France, Emirates, International Lease Finance
Corporation, Qantas, Singapore Airlines, Qatar Airways, Lufthansa and Virgin
Atlantic.
The double-decker A380 will be the world’s largest airliner, offering
more floor-space, cabin volume and seat-width to passengers than any other
aircraft, setting new standards in comfort for travellers and introducing a
new way of flying.
The A380 baseline version, the A380-800, will be able to carry 555 passengers in three classes over distances of up to 15,100km/8,150nm, while stretched, shrunk and extended range variants, as well as a freighter variant, will become available as and when the market requires. Based on an entirely new design, integrating the most modern technologies, the A380 will offer 15 to 20 per cent lower seat operating costs compared to the 747-400, while providing around 35 per cent more seats and up to 15 per cent more range.
Click here for further general details on the A380.
Click here for the A380 Airport Planning manual, which is issued for the A380-800 passenger aircraft and A380-800F freighter, provides preliminary data needed by airport operators and airlines for airport facilities planning.
Airports that are likely to be ready for the A380 in 2006/7 are: London (LHR,LGW), Paris (CDG), Singapore (SIN), Tokyo (NRT), Sydney (SYD), New York (JFK), Los Angeles (LAX), San Francisco (SFO), Miami (MIA), Dubai (DXB) and Qatar-Doha (DOH).
U.S. Airport Pavement Researchers to use APSDS and CIRCLY
APSDS and CIRCLY have just been licenced to the U.S. Center of Excellence for Airport Pavement Research at the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign). The Centre is supported by the Federal Aviation Administration, with the aim of developing pavement design for next generation aircraft. APSDS and CIRCLY will be used to analyse results from the US Airport Pavement Testing Facility, the newly commissioned accelerated full-scale pavement loading machine.28 October 1999
Container Terminal Pavements:
Ashdod North Port Development, Israel.
Project cost for the new Ashdod North Port in Israel is about a billion dollars.
Pavement alternatives studied with APSDS considered the lateral wander of the various vehicles and the frequency distribution of container weights.
For further details on how APSDS was used click here.
27 October 1999
Interaction between wheels and wheel groups of New Large AircraftA new research paper, Interaction between wheels and wheel groups of New Large Aircraft, shows how current‘mechanistic’ design methods predict that, for very low strength subgrades, much greater pavement thicknesses will be needed for the B777 and the NLAs.
The paper demonstrates why vertical strain as an indicator of pavement damage often produces anomalous results. Also any design methods that are based simply on the value of a given strain component at a point are unlikely to be fully satisfactory to predict pavement behaviour.30 November 1998
Heavy Duty Pavements
For further details on how APSDS was used to design container terminal pavements at the Port of Brisbane click here.
We have recently published a paper that describes why performance data developed for highway pavements is not appropriate for heavy loadings such as airports and container terminals and can lead to grossly under-designed pavements. For further details see Rodway and Wardle (1998).
