BURLINGTON RUNWAY 18/36 RECONSTRUCTION

Project Overview

The Southeast Iowa Regional Airport tasked McClure with providing design, bidding and construction support to rehabilitate or reconstruct the Airport’s primary runway, Runway 18/36. Runway 18/36 consists of an asphalt pavement surface course (approximately 6 inches thick) overlaid on concrete pavement (approximately 8 to10 inches thick).  The majority of concrete pavement was constructed in 1944 and a 1,351-foot extension to the south constructed in 1968. The most recent improvement was a 3-inch asphalt overlay in 2005.

At present, the asphalt surface is experiencing climate-related distresses such as cracking, weathering, and blowups (particularly along the edges of the runway).  Following a 2014 visual pavement assessment, most of the runway was assigned a Pavement Condition Index (PCI) value of 59 out of 100 while the southernmost 1,000 feet was assessed at 56. During the preliminary design phase, a geotechnical investigation was completed and it was deemed necessary to do a reconstruction of the runway.

The project is divided into the following eight (8) elements:

1. Reconstruct Runway 18/36
2. Re-grade Runway 18/36 Safety Area to improve Drainage
3. Remove Runway 18 Displaced Threshold
4. Construct a new Taxiway A1 to the existing Runway 18 threshold
5. Reconstruct Runway 12/30 (inside the Runway 18/36 Object Free Area)
6. Reconstruct/Rehabilitate Taxiways
7. NAVAIDs/VISUAL AIDS
8. Runway 18 Temporary Displaced Threshold

Project Highlights:

McClure understands the importance of maintaining operations during construction on an airfield.  A well-executed phasing plan begins with conducting numerous coordination meetings with key stakeholders to seek input, considering multiple alternatives, and providing a recommendation for minimizing the impact to the Airport. After discussions with key stakeholders such as Jet Air, Inc, and Air Choice One, McClure learned most of their operations require a minimum runway length of 4,500 feet. As a result, the McClure Team has developed a phasing plan to maintain at least 4,500 feet of usable runway length throughout the Runway 18/36 Rehabilitation project; and never requiring the airport to be entirely closed.