Abstract: As the world’s most powerful countries increase their investment in Antarctic scientific research, the construction of polar airports will play a significant role in ensuring aviation transportation. However, China’s research on the design of polar runways has rarely been reported. Here, two foreign methods of compacted snow runway design are introduced in detail, namely the double-layer elastic system method and the empirical method. The elastic method uses Burmister’s theory to calculate pavement deflection, whereas the empirical method obtains the pavement design index through measured deflection data. Taking the A320 aircraft as an example, a comparative analysis was performed of runways designed using these two methods. The advantage of the elastic method is that the same deflection standard can be used for different combinations of pavement design; the limitation is that single wheel load and the number of load actions are not considered. The empirical method considers a variety of aircraft parameters, but the deflection standard 10 mm cannot be changed. The comparison, indicated that the empirical method considers more aircraft parameters and, under the same deflection standard, the pavement design index of the empirical method was higher than that of the elastic method. Furthermore, the empirical method met strength design requirements while considering deflection. Thus, the empirical method design is deemed to be more scientific and safer than the elastic method. This study provides important reference data for the design and construction of polar compacted snow runways for China.

Key words: subgrade engineering, polar region, compacted snow runway, runway design, pavement deflection, pavement strength