Runway revival

High Accuracy Milling Has Enabled a German Contractor to Quickly and Cost effectively restore the North Runway at Berlinƌs Tegel airport to full strength. More than 100 areas on the runway, measuring between 2,5 and 295 m², were cracked and needed to be replaced.

But stripping out the damaged sections and resurfacing them is not as simple as it sounds. Tegel handles over 11 million passengers each year with flights landing or taking off every two to three minutes. To add to the complexity the whole 3 km long runway is coated with an anti-skid coating, which is classed as hazardous waste once removed. Milling out the full thickness in one pass would mean that all the planings would be classed as hazardous and the volume would result in significant disposal costs.

Enrico Feind's site team were charged with carrying out the repair work in just one day. They used a 2-m class Wirtgen cold milling machine fitted with a special microfine milling drum to remove the 3 mm thick anti-skid coating, allowing it to be disposed of separately. The team then used a Wirgten 1200 F milling to plane out a 50 mm layer of the underlying wearing course, which could then be recycled. The surface was then restored with new asphalt and recovered with an anti-skid layer.