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Roma-Fiumicino is the largest airport in Italy and, with 38.5 million passengers passing through it every year, the eighth largest in Europe. This means a very high frequency of aircraft taking off and landing, putting a very heavy load on the airport's four runways. And the wear and tear on them results in turn in a very heavy maintenance burden- hence the need for about four kilometres of runway to be rehabilitated in the early summer of 2015.
This meant a huge organisational effort on the part of the airport to reallocate and coordinate flights appropriately during the reconstruction work. For this reason, the rehabilitation work needed to be done with speed, precision and great efficiency, leaving no room for any delays. Additionally, the asphalt must satisfy the most exact requirements to prevent premature wear and tear or damage to the runways. For this reason, the construction company responsible for laying the asphalt, Pavimental, deployed a Roadtec SB-2500 material transfer vehicle and a MOBA PAVE-IR Scan system along with the paver they chose for the job in order to achieve the highest possible surfacing quality and at the same time to be in a position to document the fact that the material had been laid uniformly and according to the customer requirements. So, aside from the quality of the mixture itself, its temperature during laying is one of the most decisive factors in producing the best possible quality for the asphalted surface. Laying thermally re-separated materials, for example, can lead to premature damage to the asphalt surface. On the other hand, laying materials at too low temperature can also have negative consequences, since the best possible compaction can only be achieved within a particular temperature window. Using the PAVE-IR Scan quality control system, the resurfacing team can measure, display and plot the asphalt temperature throughout the project and over the entire width of the paving surface. For this purpose, an infrared scanner is mounted over the screed to measure the temperature directly during laying work, while a GNSS antenna plots the machine's position. In addition to this, a weather station monitors relevant additional local conditions, such as air temperature and wind speed. All data are then displayed on an on-board computer, so that appropriate adjustments can be made to the relevant parameters. All data recorded is saved for documentation purposes and can be assessed later back at the office. This facility meant that the construction company chosen to rehabilitate the runway could prove to the customer that the surfacing material was laid uniformly.
Rehabilitation of the runway at Roma-Fiumicino Airport
The PAVE-IR Scan's scanner records the asphalt temperature over the entire width of the paved surface
The temperature profile is displayed along with the relevant GPS coordinates and weather data on the on-board computer and saved separately
Have I intrigued your interest? Then, check out also the following contributions:
Pave-IR Scan jobsite report - New construction of a bypass road
Improving Paving Quality: 10 most common questions asked about PAVE-IR and Thermal Segregation
Temperature measurement in asphalt paving (Part I)
