Survey of airport facilities: novel approaches

Abstract

Airports are very specific infrastructures requiring ad hoc design, construction and management approaches. Indeed, they typically include different types of structures, which are handled with remarkably different techniques. Particularly, landside elements (e.g. terminals, technical facilities, real estate areas…) are usually treated as building structures, whereas airside items (e.g. runways, aprons) are generally managed according to specific pavement engineering standards and procedures. At interfaces between these blocks, difficulties are experienced by designers and maintenance operators, who have to interact with different work methodologies at the same time.In addition, such a scenario is even compounded by the fact that the airport environment is strictly subject to a number of constraints and regulations due to safety and security reasons. This implies that, in comparison to other infrastructures, a huge amount of remote sensing and non-destructive survey data is regularly collected in airports to be used as support to decisions by the facility manager in matter of both airport extension projects and maintenance of the existing asset.In such a context, novel perspectives are being fostered by the recent spread of Building Information Modeling (BIM) approaches in design and management processes for transport infrastructures. Given the complexity of the airport case, digital environments capable of containing both land-and air-side data, monitoring survey reports and limitations acting in the different areas of the asset are expected to drive the following achievements:▪ enhancement of the accuracy of information at the land-side/air-side interfaces;▪ increase of actions planning efficiency through management of integrated monitoring datasets; ▪ strengthening of constraints and limitations effectiveness by means of the simulation of the interference between worksite activities and obstacles-free volumes.This study reports on the actual potential and challenges related to a digital model at a land-side/air-side interface area in an airport. Particularly, the study has focused on the digitalization of the multi-source non-destructive testing (NDT) survey conducted over an apron area located in Italy.