Ice and Snow Runway Engineering in the Antarctica: Current Status and Prospect

Abstract

The competition among world powers for the rights and interests regarding Antarctic science and technology frontiers, geopolitics, and resource exploitations tends to be fierce. Therefore, constructing and operating Antarctic aviation infrastructure becomes strategically important for China as it assists in enhancing China’s comprehensive influence in the Antarctica, expanding the scale of Antarctic scientific expedition, and rapidly delivering personnel and materials. This study comprehensively reviews the current status of Antarctic airport construction and investigates the technical challenges faced by China regarding the same issue. We also analyze the engineering technology systems of polar research powers for ice and snow runway construction and summarize the key technologies that China should master for Antarctic airport construction. For future construction of large airport runways in the Antarctica, the core engineering technology system for China should cover three major engineering steps (i.e., runway site selection, pavement material design, and manual treatment of ice and snow pavements) and one core technology (i.e., compacted snow layer construction). Considering the demand for aviation capacities by the innovative development of China’s Antarctic scientific expedition, we propose the following key research directions: natural environmental conditions of airport sites, snow compaction, construction equipment, and design of the airport operation monitoring system.

Keywords

• Antarctic airport, ice and snow runway, airport site selection, compacted snow runway, construction equipment