Evaluation of Harvey Electron Beam Welded AM2 Landing Mat (AM2 Mod 2)

The investigation reported was conducted to evaluate the performance of the electron beam welded AM2 landing mat. A test section consisting of a heavy clay subgrade was constructed and surfaced with the electron beam welded AM2 mat, which will be known as AM2 mod 2. The test section was subjected to traffic representing 1600 operational cycles of an aircraft having a 60,000-lb gross weight with a single-wheel main-gear assembly load of 27,000 lb and a 30- 7.7 tire inflated to 400 psi. Based on the results obtained in this investigation, it is concluded that the AM2 mod 2 mat will sustain 1600 cycles 188 coverages of aircraft operations with a 27,000-lb single-wheel load and 400-psi tire inflation pressure when placed on a subgrade having a CBR of 3.6 or greater throughout the period of traffic, and electron beam welding of the end connectors resulted in considerable improvement in performance of the AM2 mod 2 mat over that of AM2 mat tested previously.