New airport construction

Asphalt or concrete for new airport construction?

Both asphalt and concrete can be used as surfacing. While concrete is primarily used at major airports due to its long service life (up to 40 years), asphalt (which is cheaper and has a service life of only 15 to 20 years) is more frequently used at smaller airports.

No matter which material is used, the surface must be extremely flat and the friction characteristics excellent to ensure that flight operations remain smooth – regardless of the weather conditions. In order to prevent aquaplaning, the transverse grooves are cut into the concrete runway surface to allow the water to drain off.

New airport construction in Beijing

The aprons at Beijing New International Airport in Daxing, China, consist of concrete 42 cm thick that WIRTGEN slipform pavers poured into fixed steel mould 5 m wide.

New airport construction in Ulaanbaatar

At the New Ulaanbaatar International airport in Mongolia, WIRTGEN slipform pavers paved the two-layer concrete surface.

New airport construction in Istanbul

Istanbul Airport replaced Istanbul-Atatürk Airport as Turkey’s largest airport in April 2019.


What is the structure of a runway?

Different design principles and construction methods can be considered depending on the load that the runways will exposed to during operation. The thickness of the surface ranges from 25 cm to 130 cm for runways that must withstand heavy loads.

New airport construction in Berlin

To ensure that even large aircraft such as the A 380 can take off and land without any problems, the air operations areas at Berlin Brandenburg International (BBI) were built from concrete 130 cm thick.

New airport construction in the South Atlantic

The runway at St. Helena Airport on the island about 2,000 km west of Angola is only 1,950 metres long.

In the case of a 130 cm thick pavement, the bottom 50 centimetres can first be used to improve and compact the partially non-cohesive, partially cohesive soil with cement. The next layer consists of 15 cm of a solidified mixture of hydrophobic cement and frost-resistant sand. WIRTGEN soil stabilisers and HAMM soil compactors are used for this purpose. A 25 cm thick CTB lies above it. Last but not least, slipform pavers lay a 40 cm thick concrete layer in vertical moulds with a sinusoidal profile.

New airport construction in Istanbul

HAMM compactors compacted the cement-treated base.

New airport construction in Indonesia

A total of eleven slipform pavers from WIRTGEN paved the new runway, apron, and taxiways with extreme precision at the new International Airport Yogyakarta (YIA) in Indonesia.

New airport construction in Indonesia

Once the International Airport Yogyakarta (YIA) has been completed, up to 20 million passengers will be able to take off and land here.

Job Reports

A paving team used WITOS Paving Plus for the first time at Jade-Weser.

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11 slipform pavers from Wirtgen are cost-effectively paving concrete surfaces at the new YIA airport in Indonesia with maximum precision.

Asia’s most efficient ground crew

A fleet of six Wirtgen cold milling machines removed tens of thousands of tons of old asphalt at Oakland International Airport in California in less than 60 hours.

Airport in Oakland

Plants and machines from Wirtgen, Vögele, Hamm and Benninghoven are playing a vital part in the construction of the "New Istanbul Airport".

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The power of the WIRTGEN GROUP as the engine driving the construction of the İstanbul Yeni Havalimanı airport – the largest infrastructure project in the history of Turkey.

Airport construction Istanbul

The various tasks would normally be standard activities, if it were not for the extreme time pressure and high quality requirements.

New asphalt pavement at Frankfurt/Main Airport

Concentrated power of the WIRTGEN GROUP on the job at Büchel Air Base

New surface course for the Tornados

The largest WIRTGEN slipform paver, the SP 1600, and the flexible SP 500 bring all their skills into play when paving concrete at the New Ulaanbaatar International Airport.

Construction of the New Ulaanbaatar airport

Concentrated power of the WIRTGEN GROUP on the job at Büchel Air Base.

New asphalt surface course for Tornado jets

Airport redevelopment and airport expansion

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