Basel Airport (BSL)

Initial situation

At Basel Airport the concrete paving at the start of the landing runway had to be replaced on a surface of approximately 70m². Construction work had to be carried out at night to avoid disrupting normal flight operations. To allow the scheduled reopening of the runway the concrete had to reach an adequate strength at the time of acceptance – 5am.

Solution and assessment

For this project the rapid-hardening concrete Concretum^® Q-FLASH 2/20 was used. It reaches a compressive strength of over 20 NN/mm² just 2 hours after the start of mixing. This enabled construction work to be completed within the very narrow time frame. The concrete was produced in the plant and then transported directly from the truck mixer to the structural element. After levelling with a vibrating beam, brushing was applied and the surface was protected from drying by applying a curing-compound.