Both asphalt and concrete can be used as surfacing. While concrete is primarily used at major airports due to its long service life (up to 40 years), asphalt (which is cheaper and has a service life of only 15 to 20 years) is more frequently used at smaller airports.
No matter which material is used, the surface must be extremely flat and the friction characteristics excellent to ensure that flight operations remain smooth – regardless of the weather conditions. In order to prevent aquaplaning, the transverse grooves are cut into the concrete runway surface to allow the water to drain off.
New airport construction in Beijing
The aprons at Beijing New International Airport in Daxing, China, consist of concrete 42 cm thick that WIRTGEN slipform pavers poured into fixed steel mould 5 m wide.
New airport construction in Ulaanbaatar
At the New Ulaanbaatar International airport in Mongolia, WIRTGEN slipform pavers paved the two-layer concrete surface.
New airport construction in Istanbul
Istanbul Airport replaced Istanbul-Atatürk Airport as Turkey’s largest airport in April 2019.
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What is the structure of a runway?
Different design principles and construction methods can be considered depending on the load that the runways will exposed to during operation. The thickness of the surface ranges from 25 cm to 130 cm for runways that must withstand heavy loads.
New airport construction in Berlin
To ensure that even large aircraft such as the A 380 can take off and land without any problems, the air operations areas at Berlin Brandenburg International (BBI) were built from concrete 130 cm thick.
New airport construction in the South Atlantic
The runway at St. Helena Airport on the island about 2,000 km west of Angola is only 1,950 metres long.
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In the case of a 130 cm thick pavement, the bottom 50 centimetres can first be used to improve and compact the partially non-cohesive, partially cohesive soil with cement. The next layer consists of 15 cm of a solidified mixture of hydrophobic cement and frost-resistant sand. WIRTGEN soil stabilisers and HAMM soil compactors are used for this purpose. A 25 cm thick CTB lies above it. Last but not least, slipform pavers lay a 40 cm thick concrete layer in vertical moulds with a sinusoidal profile.
New airport construction in Istanbul
HAMM compactors compacted the cement-treated base.
New airport construction in Indonesia
A total of eleven slipform pavers from WIRTGEN paved the new runway, apron, and taxiways with extreme precision at the new International Airport Yogyakarta (YIA) in Indonesia.
New airport construction in Indonesia
Once the International Airport Yogyakarta (YIA) has been completed, up to 20 million passengers will be able to take off and land here.
