Zurich Airport Concrete Pavement Design

In response to manage the increase in air traffic volume, Zurich International Airport has built a new Midfield Dock with apron and a new taxiway system. For the new operational surfaces, which lie in a reclaimed swamp area, a hard-wearing but economic pavement had to be built for aircraft weights up to 6500 kN. The airport lies in the periphery of the Zurich greater city area, and the neighbouring population complains about the emission levels resulting from the air traffic. The Zurich Airport Authority specified, therefore, that the environmental impacts during construction and operation of the new facilities should be minimized. The article describes which measures were met to satisfy these requirements during construction of the approximately 600,000 m2 of apron and taxiway surfaces: High-quality, unreinforced concrete pavement with high bending tensile strength on a cement-stabilized foundation; bonding between the pavement layers; base stabilization by means of an in-place soil mixer; reuse of all excavation and demolition materials, as far as technically possible and economically feasible; equipping the lorries and construction machines with the best available technology (defined as Euro 2 standard for trucks and particle filters with opacities < 10 % for construction machines), and minimization of empty load journeys.