Two Pennsylvania projects are among winners of the 13th annual Excellence in Concrete Pavement Awards. The awards, sponsored each year by the American Concrete Pavement Association (ACPA) and Concrete Construction magazine, go to paving contractors, engineers and specifying agencies/owners in recognition of smooth, safe and efficient pavements.
An Erie County, NY, project was named a finalist in the competition, becoming the first concrete pavement project in the state to earn a national award.
The award for “Divided Highways (Rural)” went to the widening and reconstruction of U.S. 11/15 in Pennsylvania’s Perry, Juniata and Snyder counties, while construction of a new Widebody Deicing Facility at the Pittsburgh International Airport took the award in the “Commercial Service and Military Airports” category.
Named a finalist in the “Overlays” competition was the ultra-thin whitetopping of Route 952Q (Walden Avenue) in New York’s Erie County.
Honored for their work on U.S. 11/15 were Angelo Iafrate Construction Co., URS Corp. (the project engineer) and Engineering District 8-0 of the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT).
Innovations while widening this 10-mi. (16.1 km) section of highway from three lanes to five allowed the contractor to earn a $300,000 bonus for smoothness.
Knowing that the key to producing this very smooth pavement was a constant head of concrete in front of the paver and a constant paver speed, Iafrate employed an on-site batch plant and a CMI spreader with a belt placer.
Other equipment used by Iafrate included a CMI SF-3004 paver for paving the mainline and a Gomaco GT-6300 four-track paver for ramps and shoulders.
Still, a problem developed early in the project when the contractor found that only every sixth sawed transverse joint was opening, and the crack was approximately five-eighths inch wide. After experimenting with various materials, Iafrate decided to use a sand bond breaker between the asphalt-treated permeable base and the saw-cut concrete pavement. This resulted in more uniform joint openings and less penetration of concrete into the base course. The Federal Highway Administration and PennDOT have adopted this job as a research project on the technique.
Honored for the new Widebody Deicing Facility at Pittsburgh International Airport were Hi-Way Paving Inc./Trumbull Corp. Joint Venture, contractor; Camp Dresser and McKee Inc. and Michael Baker Jr. Inc., engineers; Parson Brinckerhoff Construction Services Inc., construction management; and the Allegheny County Airport Authority, owner.
The project had its genesis in November 2000, when the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection ordered the construction of an environmentally sound deicing facility that could accommodate widebody aircraft in time for the 2001-2002 winter season.
This required the installation of more than 71,000 sq. yds. (59,365 sq m) of 16-in. (40.6 cm) thick concrete pavement with a high-density polyethylene liner under the entire area.
Hi-Way Paving used a Gomaco SP-2600 paver and PS-2600 belt placer-spreader to pave alternating lanes of pavement. A Rex model S batch plant was located on a paved parking lot with one-half mile of the construction site, a 2,400-ft. (731.5 m) network of drains was installed in deep trenches to catch the deicing fluid and move it through 4,600 ft. (1,402 m) of pipeline as large as 66 in. (168 cm) in diameter on its way to a 1.4-million-gal. (5.3 million L) holding tank.
Given the time constraints and the added congestion that the construction caused the airport (which had 423,000 landings last year), many phases of the construction were conducted concurrently — adding to the high risk of the project. Nonetheless, the project was turned over to the airport for the deicing season starting Dec. 15, 2001.
Honored for their work on Route 952Q in Erie County were Leone Construction and Region 5 of the New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT).
Leone Construction used its custom-built paver for the first whitetopping overlay in the Western New York region, and only the second in the entire state. The 4-in. (10.2 cm) ultra-thin whitetopping project (4-ft. joint pattern) covered 13,500 sq. yds. (11,287 sq m). Insufficient asphalt thickness was found after milling began, so NYSDOT elected to remove the asphalt and base, replace it with 8 in. (20.3 cm) of asphalt, mill 2 in. (5.1 cm) and then place the 4-in. (10.2 cm) UTW.
Leone used its zero-clearance paver for the project, a modified asphalt paver that can place, consolidate and finish concrete up against median barrier, retaining walls, curb and gutter. It can operate off of string lines or skis for final pavement surface elevation. Leone also used four Soff-Cut saws to cut joints.
In addition to the two Pennsylvania projects, the 13th annual Excellence in Concrete Pavement Awards recognized projects in Michigan, Wisconsin, Colorado, Ohio and Georgia. Other finalists in the competition, in addition to the New York project, were located in Oklahoma, New Mexico, Iowa, Wisconsin, Missouri and Minnesota.
The winners and finalists were selected from more than 90 entries by a panel of industry experts and judged on the basis of overall pavement smoothness, quality-control measures, project complexity and innovative construction solutions.
The American Concrete Pavement Association is the national trade association for the concrete pavement industry. Its more than 600 members include paving contractors, cement companies, equipment manufacturers, material and service supplies, ready-mixed concrete producers, allied associations/organizations, bonding and insurance companies and consulting firms.
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