ACES group, a leading regional provider of specialised geotechnical engineering services, said its regional centre of excellence for pavement studies has completed an extensive study at the Dubai International Airport (DXB) to evaluate the pavement condition of the southern runway, its associated taxiways and general service equipment (GSE) roads around the airport facilities and concourses.

The scope of work awarded to ACES by Dar Al Handasah, included several highly specialized destructive and non-destructive evaluation methods.

The non-destructive scope included visual inspection and documentation of the present condition and existing types of distresses, pavement condition index (PCI) evaluation, international roughness index (IRI) evaluation and Boeing bump index (BBI) evaluation using the laser roughness profiler, said a statement from the company.

Furthermore, the pavement deflection, modulus of elasticity, modulus of subgrade and load transfer efficiency were non-destructively evaluated using the super heavy falling weight deflectometer (SH-FWD), it added.

As DXB is the world’s third and sixth busiest airport in terms of passenger and cargo traffic respectively, ACES regional centre of excellence for pavement studies (RCE) had introduced an added layer of complexity during work completion.

With only two operational runways, all sampling and field work had to be completed on taxiways with live aircraft traffic, and all sampling points (test pits and cores) required drilling, excavation, and reinstatement during very limited runway closure periods in close coordination with air traffic control, said the company in a statement.

In addition to the Dubai Airport project, the RCE has an extensive airport evaluation portfolio including the quality control testing of the construction of the north runway at Queen Alia International Airport (Amman, Jordan), structural and functional evaluation of runways, taxiways, and aprons at Muscat and Salalah international airports (Oman), and analysis of asphalt concrete layers of Songwe airport (Dar Al-Salam, Tanzania), it added.-TradeArabia News Service