Runway Orientation Problems – A Case Study of Middle Euphrates International Airport MEIA

Abstract

It has been planned to design and construct a major international airport at the middle Euphrates region of Iraq to support the commercial development plan and serve the pilgrim’s occasional visit to the holly shrine at Holy Karbala and Najaf provinces. The airport site is 30 km west of Karbala at the edge of the great western desert. The design includes construction of two parallel runways of 4500 m length, and 2300 m center to center apart. Metrological data regarding the wind intensity, duration, direction and speed have been obtained for the site, and the wind rose diagram has been drawn. The selected project area practices a calm wind speed throughout the past 25 years. The runway orientation of maximum coverage was designed to be NW-SE (315–135). The site was adjacent to power station plant and problems arise with the interference of the 35 m height chimney of the plant with the air field. Four alternatives have been considered to solve such problem based on a comparative analysis. The first one was to move the location of the runways system to the North West in order to reduce the portion of Obstacle Limitation Surface (OLS) approach surface above the power plant. The second was to increase the center to center distance between the runways to 3000 m in order to have the power plant out of the OLS approach surface. The third alternative was to increase the spacing between runways to 3000 m and shift the second Runway to the extreme north. The fourth alternative was to change the orientation by 15° clockwise to a new one of (330–150) with minimal effect of 3% on wind coverage. The paper presents the details of such alternatives and finalizes the decision on runway orientation based on economic justification and site condition.