Smooth landing

By: Soff-Cut

Airport officials at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), the nation’s fourth-busiest airport, determined that in order to improve airport safety and prevent airport incursions, reconfiguration of the South Runway Complex would be necessary. In addition to the safety concerns, the complex will be supporting flight operations of the new Airbus 380, which international air carriers anticipate seeing at LAX in 2007. While constructing the South Runway Complex, international traffic would be diverted to the north runway, making it necessary for the new runway to be in place as soon as possible.

After careful planning and a lengthy approval process, demolition of the old runway was started and the building of the new runway began. Contractors had to carefully consider safety as well as security issues when working on such a high-profile project with airplanes flying in and out of the airport during construction.

Old concrete was demolished and removed, the ground was cleared and the 14-in. sub-base prepared with recycled existing concrete. Soff-Cut ultra-early entry concrete saws were used because of their ability to deliver maximum crack control. Using another method would have added cost to the project and provided unnecessary steps with possible cracking of the sub-base, which could continue through to the additional 19-in. final runway surface.

Having the ability to get on the concrete early proved to be a way to save the contractor time and money on the sub-base, allowing the contractor to focus on completing this high-profile project quickly and efficiently.