Ohio State University Airport in the USA looks back on a long tradition, having already served as a training facility for military and civilian pilots since as far back as 1943. Reconstruction of the asphalt pavement was called for to ensure that flight safety could be guaranteed in the future, too. The supreme requirement in this respect was maximum evenness of the pavement. And this is why contractor Shelly & Sands Inc. opted for a VISION 5200-2. This paver from VÖGELE’s VISION Series is primarily designed for high pave speeds and high laydown rates, and produced exemplary paving results.

Ohio State University Airport (OSU) is located in Columbus in the state of Ohio. While it was originally also used for training military aviators, most of the air traffic today involves commercial flights and private aircraft from people living in the region. The airport is also home to the gas turbine laboratory of the aerospace engineering faculty of OSU. The airport dates back to 1917, when the US Department of Defense established an aviation school at OSU. When the time came to rehabilitate this venerable institution, construction company Shelly & Sands from Zanesville, Ohio, was awarded the contract for the asphalt paving work. When laying the 34,000 tonnes of bituminous mix, the primary focus was on complying with the stringent requirements on the evenness of the runway and the quality of the longitudinal joints.

Good experience with evenness

The project staff at Shelly & Sands benefited from the experience they had already gained from rehabilitating a highway with the VISION 5200-2. The paver had already demonstrated its ability to effortlessly meet the requirements in terms of evenness on that job site, where it had been used in combination with NIVELTRONIC Plus®, the VÖGELE System for Automated Grade and Slope Control and the Big MultiPlex Ski. “We knew that the machine worked very well from the previous contract. So we were confident that the VISION 5200-2 was the right machine for the runway,” said Steve Schlosser, Machine Fleet Manager at Shelly & Sands.

Strip after strip paved in eight days

Asphalt paving began once the old asphalt layers had been milled off and the sub-base had been stabilized. The runway was paved in eight days. Each day, a section measuring 7.6m in width and 1.6km in length was completed, i.e. a total of 12,000m². Once the paver started, it had to keep going until the end of the day's section. This was to ensure maximum evenness in the longitudinal direction and avoid transverse joints. 6cm base course and 4cm surface course were paved. The pave speed was adapted in line with the volume of asphalt supplied to the paver and came to 2.1 to 3m per minute. “The paver had to work without stopping at all. Our crew fulfilled this requirement every day,” explained Ed Rouan, Paving Manager at Shelly & Sands. Of course, this called for faultless logistics. An asphalt mixing plant located some 24km away with a capacity of 600 tonnes per hour prepared the material and a fleet of 16 feed vehicles ensured the uninterrupted supply of mix to the paver.

Maximum precision thanks to VÖGELE technology for grade and slope control

The powerful tracked VISION 5200-2 was equipped with two VÖGELE Big MultiPlex Skis. Combined with NIVELTRONIC Plus®, the VÖGELE System for Automated Grade and Slope Control, this configuration was selected to ensure maximum precision and evenness. Thanks to this tried and tested combination, the longitudinal joints between the individual strips and the transitions to those areas not being reconstructed, were created with the utmost precision. Precise compliance with the specified longitudinal grade and transverse slope was likewise child’s play. “NIVELTRONIC Plus® works very precisely and is also very easy to operate. That’s why the paving crew really likes working with this system,” commented Schlosser.

Longitudinal joints in perfect quality

The six longitudinal joints were a critical factor in the paving job as they have a huge impact on the longevity and safety of the runway. Thanks to its separate drive and electronic control provided for each crawler track, the VISION 5200-2 features excellent tracking stability and hence makes a substantial contribution to the paving of high-quality longitudinal joints. “The joints are simply perfect,” exclaimed Ed Rouan enthusiastically when discussing the results. The existing joints also had to be integrated and matching the longitudinal grade and transverse slope on the runway and parking area was a real challenge, but one that was perfectly overcome thanks to NIVELTRONIC Plus®.

VÖGELE setting the standards

Pavement reconstruction at the Ohio State University Airport was so successful that the paving results prompted the responsible authority to draw up a specification. This is to apply as a guideline for future rehabilitation and expansion measures. The specification is based on the methods employed by Shelly & Sands and the machine technology of VÖGELE.

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