Solution Process Explained

RoleModel Software’s LightningCAD® technology underpins engineering tools for a wide variety of product verticals, but we had limited feature sets around civil engineering and terrain modeling. We have deep experience translating requirements into domain-specific Computer-Aided Design (CAD) tooling, though, and our technical point of contact within the 820 RED HORSE Squadron (RHS) communicated the scale of the problem we were attempting to solve: that in some cases, construction could be faster than the design process, and that review cycles and UFC guideline validation was eating up time. We were introduced to 820 RHS’s existing design approaches and given example survey data and construction documents to draw on, as well as the relevant UFC regulations. 

Initial Solution

The first quarter of the project timeline focused on building out our ability to ingest surveyed terrain data, visualize it in the editor, place basic runways, and model the shoulders (paved and unpaved) to match basic UFC guidelines. Pavement specifications are still generated separately in the Pavement-Transportation Computer Assisted Structural Engineering (PCASE) application and input into Airfield Designer by the user, where it is used to drive grading of the terrain model and define the layer materials for the estimated Bill of Materials (BOM).

The largest value we were able to deliver in the first phase centered around runway optimization. We developed a grading engine based on our LightningCAD® framework that allowed us to rapidly automate solving runway elevation constraints to limit the fill dirt needed. For a given Easting-Northing location and runway dimensions, in a matter of seconds, Airfield Designer is able to solve for the nearest ⅛” elevation increment that does not require outside fill dirt under the runway and the graded shoulders and minimizes leftover fill. We were told that this step required time-consuming trial and error in the existing workflow, reduced to a nearly automatic operation by our tool. Alongside the Net Dirt calculation, we were also able to report on the overall quantities of construction materials required, with fuller simulation and estimation of pavement materials reserved for later stages of this Phase II project.

Design Guidelines

We distilled the geometric design requirements for USAF airfields embedded in 3-260-01 into two rulesets in our engine: one for Class A mission aircraft, and the other for larger Class B requirements. These rules were initially used to constrain design parameters, but upon review by 820 RHS we changed the implementation to permit designing outside of UFC defaults. We validate the configured model against UFC requirements and generate warnings in the Airfield Designer interface that have to be manually accepted after a waiver is obtained.