Sabiha Gökçen International Airport in Istanbul is one of the fastest growing airports in the world. Due to its growing capacity, large parts of the runway now need to be replaced. The work is being carried out in 5-hour night shifts, reconstructing up to 100 square metres of runway per night. Thanks to the innovative concrete from Concretum, flight operations can continue without interruptions.
A spin-off of the Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, Concretum has developed a rapid-hardening concrete that can be processed in around 90 minutes and hardens to a load-bearing surface in just one hour, allowing aircraft to take off and land normally on the new concrete surface the following morning.
The new concrete pavements have a lifespan of around 40 years, at the end of which the concrete can be fully recycled. This creates a closed construction material cycle, in contrast to asphalt.
The Istanbul project is the first such large-scale application of rapid-hardening concrete for runway renewable. “The Turkish contractor YBT is the first to apply such large quantities of rapid-hardening concrete on a runway repair during extremely short night shifts,” according to a Concretum statement.
Concretum’s rapid-hardening concrete has already been successfully used at many European airports, including Zurich Airport.
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