10.10.2022

During the construction of the Baikal-Amur Mainline, there was a popular song in which an experienced pilot found the right course over the taiga and landed the plane right in the clearing. You don’t have to be a pilot to understand how difficult it is to land a multi-tonne machine on bare ground. The BAM was built long ago, but the problem of arranging airstrips in inaccessible areas remains. But today there is an effective solution based on domestic materials and technologies — mobile prefabricated and demountable aluminium alloy covers for runways, helipads, taxiways, and aircraft parking areas.

Green sea of taiga under the wing
With 17 million square kilometres, Russia is the largest country in the world. It is no secret that many parts of our country can only be reached by plane or helicopter. But ships — even aircraft — need ‘berths,’ and the number of airport and airfield facilities in Russia has fallen 6.5-fold since the collapse of the USSR. How can these losses be quickly and cost-effectively recovered?

Airfields with unpaved runways are only at first glance the optimal solution. During the muddy season, it is almost impossible to use an unpaved runway. During frosty weather the soil swells and during the dry season it is blown away intensively and irregularly, which results in a significant loss of bearing capacity of the soil, the formation of pavement defects, including ruts, deepening during repeated passes, which also negatively affects the performance of the runway, thus shortening the life of aircraft and reducing the safety of their operation. When runways and landing sites are located on unbound, dust-forming soils in dry seasons, due to intense dust generation, safe operation of aircraft cannot be ensured either.

The use of concrete airfield slabs (PAGs, or smooth airfield slabs) is uneconomical and often simply impossible. Because of the large weight of the structure — PAG-14, for example, weighs 4.2 tonnes — it is extremely difficult to deliver these slabs to hard-to-reach regions. In addition, the installation of the slabs requires special machinery and the preparation of the artificial substrate, which significantly increases the cost of the work.

The prefabricated steel strip airfield pavements that began in use during the Second World War have now been phased out. They had a number of disadvantages. For example, when the substrate becomes too wet, the soil is squeezed out through perforations and joints, contaminating the surface of the pavement and reducing its frictional properties. In a wet season, such pavements can accommodate aircraft weighing up to 15 tonnes, which is insufficient today. Finally, steel strip airfield pavements are susceptible to corrosion and have low mobility. So is there no way out?

The ecosystem will thank you!
In the 1960s, aluminium AM2 slabs were used in the USA for the surfaces of temporary runways, taxiways, and parking decks. In the USSR, since the 1970s, the 26th Central Research Institute of the Ministry of Defence has been developing the AAP-3 aluminium airfield slab for prefabricated pavements for aircraft weighing up to 40 tonnes.

The choice of winged metal as a construction material is no accident. Aluminium is durable, has excellent corrosion resistance and is resistant to fuels, lubricants and de-icing agents. Furthermore, unlike other coatings, aluminium airfield slabs retain their optimal adhesive properties even in extreme temperature fluctuations (-55°C to +60°C). This seasonal variation is typical, for example, in Yakutia.

The technology of aluminium airfield pads is also top-notch. The laying of aluminium surfacing does not require a bed of crushed stone and sand, as is the case with concrete slabs, which reduces the cost and time of the work many times over. The aluminium coating is repairable and the soil remains undamaged once it has been removed. All these qualities are all the more powerful when combined with the lightness of the cover set. An aluminium helipad, for example, is more than ten times lighter than one made of concrete slabs!

Today, the best-known manufacturer of aluminium prefabricated coverings is the British company Faun TrackWay, which uses lamellas of various sizes as the basic element of the structure. And what about Russia?

Krasnoyarsk’s response
In our country, the development of a prefabricated helicopter landing pad made of aluminium slabs has been commissioned by the Aluminium Association of Krasnoyarsk’s multi-profile SIAL Group of Companies, in particular, SEGAL casting and pressing plant, which is part of it. The aluminium prefabricated covers are called SIAL-AERO. Studies of the usability and safety of the prefabricated aluminium boarding produced by SEGAL CPP have shown the effectiveness and reliability of their use as an artificial surface for landing pads for heavy and medium class helicopters, which is confirmed by certificates of compliance.

The basic cover kit (SA01), designed for helicopters with a maximum take-off weight of up to 60 tonnes, is already in successful operation in Krasnoyarsk and Krasnodar regions. The SA02 lightweight kit, designed for MI-8 helicopters with a maximum take-off weight of up to 20 tonnes, has been tested and is undergoing certification.

The kits are transported in containers per one helicopter flight. The total weight of the lamellas required to mount a 25x25m heliport for year-round operation of the Mi-26 helicopter is 16.5 t, and the weight of the lightweight SA02 for the Mi-8 helicopter is only 8.4 t.

The platform can be installed in all weather conditions and on any surface without the use of special heavy machinery. And why the special technique when a single two metre aluminium lamella, made of 6082 alloy, weighs just 11 kg in the basic version and 6.4 kg in the lighter version for the SA02 platform. The heliport itself takes about four hours to assemble. That kind of speed was unimaginable with other technologies!

‘From a functional point of view, helicopter pilots see no difference between a concrete, asphalt and aluminium pad,’ Alexey Kiselev, General Designer of SEGAL CPP, says. ‘But our structures, unlike concrete, asphalt and steel, are not only much quicker and easier to install and are not prone to corrosion, but they are also mobile. The aluminium coating can easily be assembled and returned to warehouse until the next use.’

Obviously, aluminium coatings will help to address transport accessibility issues in hard-to-reach areas. The standard aluminium pad kits allow for rapid deployment in a short time, even when laid on an unconsolidated substrate, which is particularly relevant for areas in Siberia, the Far East and the Arctic zone. Such solutions are also in demand for efficient operations in emergency, medical, search and rescue, business and unmanned aerial vehicles, infrastructure for gas and oil field operations, including in the Far North. Lightweight mobile platforms made of aluminium can be useful for the development of an air taxi network.

Today, Krasnoyarsk is implementing a pilot project for an aluminium prefabricated taxiway and runway, which will quickly increase the capacity of the existing airfield facilities, and can also be used to return aircraft that have rolled out onto the runway to the ground. With this in mind, new airfield infrastructure products of SIAL Group of Companies will find demand not only in the domestic market, but also on the international market.