Company insight
A transformative tool for airport design
The complexities of airport planning require powerful tools for modelling aircraft movements in minute detail to achieve efficient traffic flows and, just as importantly, maintain the highest standards of safety. Bernard Goodworth, senior product manager for aviation at Transoft Solutions, and airfield design specialist Matthias Hildebrandt of planeground airport consulting, a Transoft client with offices in Cologne and Amsterdam, tell Future Airport how AviPLAN has proved to be the ideal tool for airside design.
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n every aspect of airport design, precision is key. Accurately modelling every aspect of airside traffic, airport infrastructure and ground support, as well as their movement around the airport, is the first and most important step in making airport operations safe, efficient and compliant with strict regulations. From aircraft parking to pavement- marking design, apron and taxiway construction work to jet blast analysis, tools from software developer Transoft Solutions have been used in airports across the world, and its flagship solution
in the development of AviPLAN for a long while – around 20 years – initially as a user, but for the past four years a product manager. We have always focused on user feedback to guide the software development, which is I expect why most of our users find the software so intuitive. “AviPLAN is already the only product of its type that offers jet blast impact analysis and comprehensive stand design, but there is continuous work on new or improved features and capabilities to enhance speed, and how to interpret and apply the results,” he adds.
“AviPLAN is already the only product of its type that offers jet blast impact analysis and comprehensive stand design, but there is continuous work on new or improved features and capabilities to enhance speed, and how to interpret and apply the results.”
Bernard Goodworth
AviPLAN has built a market-leading reputation among airside planning, design and operations professionals. AviPLAN is a CAD application specifically created to enable airport planners to accurately design the geometry of the movement and parking areas at airports of any size.
“In the latest version, we have added extended functionality for the analysis of the fleet compatibility of existing taxiway infrastructures,” says Bernard Goodworth, senior product manager for aviation at Transoft. “Personally, I have been involved
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Making airports ready for the future
Those new features will be guided by feedback from clients using AviPLAN for major projects. One client is Matthias Hildebrandt, airfield design specialist at planeground airport consulting, who has a wealth of experience using the software. Before starting with planeground, Hildebrandt was working for a major German airport, where he worked on a host of projects. Among them are taxiway fillet design and compliance studies, temporary parking of overflow aircraft on taxiways,
the design of engine running positions on taxiways, aircraft stand capability upgrades for new aircraft types, wing tip clearance assessments and jet blast analysis across the aircraft movement area.
Among other major works, planeground have been involved in upgrading the taxiway systems of some secondary and regional airports, allowing them to accept wide body airplanes for both passenger and cargo services. “We use AviPLAN extensively when designing temporary parking positions for aircraft on the taxiways due to the Covid- 19 pandemic,” says Hildebrandt. “The software enables quick assessment of the different aircraft types, wing tip clearances and separation distances between aircraft/ tugs and the high-strength pavement edge. It is also used to determine the suitability of each parking position for low-power engine ground running for various maintenance purposes.”
“In the design of a taxiway run-up bay, the software was used to simulate impacts of jet blast during high-power engine ground running on the adjacent airside perimeter roads and the best locations for jet blast warning signs,” he adds. “Airside safety should be the highest priority at any airport, thus proper design and analysis is essential to ensure airside personnel and vehicles are not exposed to the dangers of high-speed, high-temperature airflows when in operation.” In one taxiway project, which included the construction of new taxiways parallel to existing infrastructure over multiple work stages, AviPLAN was vital to the planning and design of work areas by providing jet blast analysis and
Future Airport /
www.futureairport.com
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