ARTICLES
| URETEK offers fast runway repairs |
Eindhoven Airport in the Netherlands is rapidly increasing in terms of traffic and passenger numbers. The airport’s two runways are therefore always busy. The platform that gives access to the main runway is made of huge concrete slabs. Earlier this year, some damage had occurred and the intersections between four of the concrete slabs needed to be repaired. It was crucial that the repair be carried out with minimal disruption to traffic and Eindhoven therefore selected an injection process solution from URETEK.
URETEK’s patented underground control solutions for airports incorporate precision injection of specially developed highly expansive hydro-insensitive materials enabling very accurate re-grade and slab alignment for ramps, taxiways and runways. The URETEK Deep Injection Process, which is provided with a ten-year material guarantee, drives out water, fills underground soil fissures and voids, and expands to densify the ground. The method avoids the need for excavation and the injected materials can reach 90% strength in around 15 minutes, causing minimum disruption to operations.
For the Eindhoven application, the runway was kept clear for two hours at midday, giving the URETEK team time to repair the area. The repair can be carried out in a short time thanks to the ease of transportation and a relatively clean process that reduces clean-up time.
Roland Caldbeck of URETEK says that this is very much a growing business area for the company. “With the advent of ever bigger planes, such as the Airbus A380, more and more problems are likely to develop on the runways, apron areas and hangars. In the UK for example, URETEK has received interest from and held meetings with most of the major British airport authorities who are keen to explore fast and non-disruptive methods of repair and so are strongly considering using the URETEK solution for forthcoming repairs.”
URETEK’s technologies have been used on some 75,000 projects worldwide, including numerous commercial airport and military airfield applications. These include Dallas-Fort Worth, Orlando International, San Francisco International, Los Angeles International, and San Jose airports in the United States; Vienna Airport, Austria; Sydney International and Brisbane International airports, Australia; Toronto-Pearson International Airport, Canada; Paris-CDG Airport, France; Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, Netherlands; Leonardo da Vinci Airport, Italy; Seoul Kimpo International Airport, Korea; Oslo-Gardermoen Airport, Norway; and Basel-Mulhouse, Geneva and Zurich airports, Switzerland.
Written by Kylie Bull
