Skip to main content

Minnich machines helping upgrade Venice airport

The Marco Polo Airport, which serves the Italian city of Venice, is in the midst of a major upgrade to boost capacity. The work is being handled by the SAVE Group and involves a €630 million expansion and renovation of the facilities. This will increase capacity with one major phase of the plan being the 2015-16 extension of the apron. This challenging task has been tackled by NORDPAVI, an Italian concrete contractor that specialises in airport work. The firm is based in Bolzano in Italy’s South Tyrol an
September 13, 2016 Read time: 3 mins
Minnich equipment handled the dowel pin drilling work at Venice airport
The Marco Polo Airport, which serves the Italian city of Venice, is in the midst of a major upgrade to boost capacity. The work is being handled by the SAVE Group and involves a €630 million expansion and renovation of the facilities. This will increase capacity with one major phase of the plan being the 2015-16 extension of the apron. This challenging task has been tackled by NORDPAVI, an Italian concrete contractor that specialises in airport work.

The firm is based in Bolzano in Italy’s South Tyrol and was awarded the job of slipform paving a 45,000m2 concrete apron at the airport. The company runs a 218 GOMACO slipformer in its equipment fleet. NORDPAVI airport development manager Enrico Dal Farra said that its key concerns for the work included addressing concrete supply and job-site access during the €562,000 project. Dowel-pin drill selection would be crucial to productivity and profitability.

“Security and traffic safety are critical on airport jobs,” Dal Farra said. “Because we had strict terms to respect, it was very important to have efficient and accurate equipment on the site that could be relied on. For example, it’s a major problem if we have to stop work because a dowel-pin drill doesn’t work or the dowels aren’t aligned.”

The project would require more than 16,000 dowel-pin holes 30mm in diameter to be drilled to depths of 500mm. NORDPAVI wanted to use a dowel-pin drill that delivered more than just superior speed and accuracy. Worker safety is the top priority at NORDPAVI, so operator safety features would also dictate drill selection.

NORDPAVI co-owners, partners and brothers Christian and Luca Da Canal decided to use an A-4SCW on-slab self-propelled wireless unit from 286 Minnich Manufacturing, to handle the dowel-pin drilling work.

According to Dal Farra, the Minnich A-4SCW’s wireless remote control technology enabled NORDPAVI operators to drill eight holes/minute and drive down the slab to drill the next set of holes, while standing in the grade away from the equipment. He explained that from that location, operators could drill faster and more accurately while avoiding excess dust and obstacles.

With the help of its Minnich drill, NORDPAVI completed its portion of the project on time in spring 2016.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Rebuilding the busy Frankfurt Airport in Germany
    September 12, 2017
    Handling up to 450 take-offs/day, Runway West is Frankfurt Airport’s busiest runway. Over 50% of the aircraft taking off from the airport uses Runway West, and a point worth noting is that this German airport is one of the busiest in Europe. In 2016, Frankfurt Airport handled nearly 61 million passengers, surpassed by Schiphol in Amsterdam and Charles de Gaulle in Paris, Europe’s third and second busiest airports respectively. Meanwhile London’s Heathrow remained Europe’s busiest airport
  • Caterpillar pavers assist in Malta airport upgrade
    August 23, 2016
    A new Cat AP600F paver used by Maltese contractor Bonnici Brothers has helped with important resurfacing work at Malta’s International Airport. The machine was able to carry out the paving job within a tight time frame, due to its high productivity. The work was needed at the airport as part of a programme to increase its capacity. Malta is seeing growth in passenger numbers at the airport from both business travellers and tourists and there was a need to upgrade the facility. Local contractor Bonnic
  • Machine control technology allows more efficient paving
    March 3, 2015
    In the US, a specialist contractor is making savings with new 3D technology for concrete paving. US contractor Gehring Construction is a specialist in concrete paving and is a long-time customer of GOMACO. Having bought its first GOMACO unit in 1973, Gehring has a good deal of experience in this segment. The company is now using some of the latest machine control technology, having bought a Topcon Millimetre GPS 3D stringless system, which has been used on a bypass project around the US city of Colombus. T
  • Innovations in concrete paving with new technology
    June 22, 2016
    The start of 2016 has seen major developments in the concrete paving sector - Mike Woof writes So far in 2016 there have been several major developments in the concrete paving equipment market. Many of the key players have introduced new models, broadening their ranges of machines on offer. US firms continue to dominate this niche area of the construction equipment market, with one European company being the only other major international player. At least two Chinese manufacturers have unveiled concrete