U.S National Guard’s airport upgrade

In Kansas, specialist contractor Pavers has carried out important work for the National Guard. The aim of the work was to rehabilitate a WWII era hangar apron for the Kansas National Guard. The project required extensive repair work, including pavement patching, dowel bar retrofitting, partial depth patching and joint sealing. Pavers had to overhaul a 305m x 91.5m apron at Army Aviation Support Facility No 2 that suffered from poor drainage. The project included milling 152mm of old asphalt and concrete and
October 12, 2012 Read time: 3 mins
In order to keep on the tight schedule, contractor pavers needed to drill two lanes at a time and more than 32,000 holes were required

In Kansas, specialist contractor Pavers has carried out important work for the National Guard. The aim of the work was to rehabilitate a WWII era hangar apron for the Kansas National Guard. The project required extensive repair work, including pavement patching, dowel bar retrofitting, partial depth patching and joint sealing. Pavers had to overhaul a 305m x 91.5m apron at Army Aviation Support Facility No 2 that suffered from poor drainage. The project included milling 152mm of old asphalt and concrete and replace it with a fresh concrete overlay.

The company has plenty of experience in airport paving and repair work in Kansas and the Salina airport project for the National Guard had the company facing 610mm of concrete and asphalt. The scope of the project meant sharing responsibilities with other contractors. One contractor did the milling for the top 152mm of old concrete and asphalt that needed to come out, while another company was needed to install a 25.4mm thick asphalt bond separation layer. A third major subcontractor provided traffic control, installing barriers around the work area, and doing striping. Pavers focused on the drilling, doweling and concrete overlay work.

For the dowel drilling work Pavers used pneumatic equipment from Oklahoma-based 2976 E-Z Drill. Two slab rider drills helped speed along the Kansas National Guard project. When Pavers set to work with a crew of about 15-18 employees to reconstruct the apron for the Guard, it divided the 27,870m2 tarmac area near the hangar into 18, 4.88m-wide lanes, along with a few smaller areas. The company drilled more than 32,000 holes to complete the work, with about 875 holes for each lane edge. In just a day and a half, Pavers was able to finish four 305m -long edges, a very high productivity rate. The process consisted of the crew pouring two lanes at a time, then coming back to drill the edges on both before moving to the next lanes.

Pavers employed the E-Z Drill Model 210B-2 SRA, a two-gang slab rider drill, and the Model 210B-3 SRA, a three-gang version, to drill the thousands of 2.22mm diameter, 457mm deep holes needed for the project. Once Pavers had each lane’s holes drilled, it epoxied the dowels into place and finished off the lane with fresh concrete.

Having the right equipment and experience had Pavers completing the project in time — and getting the Kansas Guard fully operational again. The facility is now used for 10 helicopter pads for the Kansas Army National Guard’s UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters. A thicker concrete area allows heavier transport planes, such as the National Guard’s KC-135 refuelling aircraft when required.
Concrete milling, paving & compaction

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Towers of power: California’s Gerald Desmond Bridge Replacement
    May 8, 2019
    Challenging ground conditions meant a design rethink - and some engineering firsts - for California’s Gerald Desmond Bridge Replacement Project* The Port of Long Beach on Terminal Island south of Los Angeles is the second-busiest container port in the US. It handles around 15% of all imported goods, much of it with Asia. As the Port of Long Beach was growing in importance over the past half century, the 51-year-old Gerald Desmond Bridge has faithfully been delivering thousands of daily commuters to wo
    Read More
  • The concrete option
    July 31, 2012
    Concrete highway construction techniques and technology continues to evolve. Mike Woof reports The recent increases in oil costs are having a knock-on effect for the road construction sector, as asphalt prices have increased noticeably and faster than those for concrete. This has spurred renewed discussion over which construction technique now offers the best long term solution for road building. The debate between those in favour of concrete and those preferring asphalt for highway construction has been on
    Read More
  • G&Z pave the way as East meets West
    March 28, 2014
    The Silk Route is one of the oldest trading links between Europe and Asia and is being upgraded with some of the newest equipment. The nation of Georgia is located on what is known as the ‘crossroads’ between Western Asia and Eastern Europe. It lies to the east of the Black Sea and is on one of the shortest routes between western China and Europe. Since the Middle Ages this strategically important country has played host to one of the network of roads collectively known as the Silk Route. For much of the 20
    Read More
  • Wirtgen machines help with road recycling in Italy
    March 18, 2016
    One of the first Wirtgen W 200 Hi cold milling machines off the assembly line is now being used for road recyling work in southern Europe. The versatility of the machine due to its novel 400mm offset drum capability has proven extremely useful for the contractor in Italy. Tuscany–based Endi Asfalti is now using the large and highly productive W 200 Hi for a wide range of milling jobs that would previously have been carried out using a combination of large and small milling machines. The proven W 200 milling
    Read More

Highlighted Content