SubscribeThe oldest sections of Frankfurt Airport's Runway North are over 30 years old. Now the 4,000 meter long, 60 meter wide strip is to undergo complete renovation.
Airport operator Fraport AG has decided on an extraordinary approach to this project: the runway has been divided into 300 segments which are being broken up and reconstructed in incremental nighttime steps.
Examinations revealed damage to large areas of the runway, partly due to the permanent increase in loads. As further repairs or partial renovation would no longer have been economical, the decision was taken to renovate the entire strip.
Preparations for this €38 million project started a year ago. First of all, the project team had to solve the central problem of maintaining take-off and landing capacities. As the airport is stretched to handle the roughly 1,300 daily aircraft movements with its full complement of three runways, the loss of Runway North for any period at all was out of the question. To get round this, the work is being carried out exclusively at night, when flight operations can be covered using a single runway.
The next problem was how to proceed. Here, too, discussions with materials specialists, engineers, logisticians and machine experts from the company Kirchhoff-Heine produced a practicable solution, which however called for precision timing, the perfect coordination of all activities and total reliability from both man and machine.
Since mid-April last year, every night between 10.30 p.m. and 6.30 a.m. a 15 meter long, 60 meter wide runway section has been broken up, removed and a new asphalt layer applied. Each job, each step, each action was meticulously planned, tried out in a “dry run” and calculated to the minute. This logistical challenge is being met by a 70-strong team of specialists and an armada of trucks, excavators, hydraulic breakers, loaders, asphalt pavers and rollers.
The convoy swings into action every evening at 10.30 p.m. Just a few minutes after crossing the concourse, seven excavators take up position and start breaking up the runway, using five heavy-duty HB 2200 Atlas Copco hydraulic breakers and two HB 3000 models. Kirchhoff-Heine, the company contracted to carry out the renovation work, worked closely with specialists from Liebherr Mietpartner and Atlas Copco in the planning phase to determine the ideal machine combinations for the job.
Of the seven and a half hours available each night, exactly 90 minutes are set aside for breaking and removing approximately 2,000 tons of concrete rubble. Four and a half hours are available for calibration, leveling, compacting the foundation and application and rolling of the special paving mixture. The roughly 2,000 tons of asphalt are delivered during the day and kept on site. The low application temperature of 120° instead of 180°C and the addition of synthetic resins allow the compound to cool and harden quickly. The final one and a half hours are needed to install the new lighting and for marking and cleaning work.
By the time the first jet lands the next morning just after 6.00 a.m., a whole new runway segment has been completed. This procedure will be repeated 300 times until the renovation project is completed in June 2005.
