Precast Concrete Paving Repairs at Vancouver International Airport

Abstract

In 2019, Vancouver International Airport conducted a precast concrete panel replacement pilot project on Taxiway Victor to establish whether precast concrete was a viable option for a planned runway repair project. This was the first major use of precast airfield pavement in North America in nearly 20 years. Twelve panels measuring 6 m × 7.5 m with a thickness of 360 mm and weighing up to 43 metric tons each were installed to demonstrate the viability of in-situ concrete panel replacement in 8-h night work windows. The panels were designed as heavily reinforced “ductile slabs”; conventional pavement design procedures would have required much greater slab thickness and removal/replacement of base material, which would have greatly slowed panel replacements. Load transfer was provided by 38-mm diameter galvanized steel dowels, which were spaced nonuniformly along each panel edge. The use of bottom slots presented a clean surface with minimal potential for foreign object damage. Five of the panels included embedded airfield light cans, which required great placement precision to ensure their proper alignment and function. Seven of the panels were nonplanar, requiring a special first-of-its-kind warped casting bed that was large enough to produce nonplanar airfield-sized panels to the specified fabrication tolerances. Many valuable lessons were learned during this pilot project, which confirmed that long-life jointed precast concrete pavement repairs could be successfully constructed in 8-h overnight work windows on an active airfield using large repair panels and doweled joints, while adhering to strict panel-to-panel elevation tolerances.