Northwest airports choose high

High performance 'green' pavement preservation materials are here to stay as five of the Pacific Northwest's airports make the switch. Among those to recently install the AROS technology-based coatings to both primary and auxiliary runways were Oregon State's Hillsboro, Salem, Corvallis, and Independence airports, with Washington State Packwood Airport completing the list.

Hillsboro Airport, located in the western subu rbs o f P ortland, is O regon's 1 argest a nd bu siest g eneral a viation a irport handling o ver 2 50,000 a nnual flights. T he 6 ,600-foot-long ( 150-footwide) primary runway is host to m any local corporations such as Nike and Intel and plays an integral role in offsetting air traffic in and out of Portland International Airport. High air traffic demand, hermes bag coupled w ith t he N orthwest's fo ur s eason climate and annual precipitation of 40 inches, requires the highest performance in runway protection.

With co altar-based coatings now on the Federal government's list of carcinogenic com pounds, state hermes bag transportation agencies around the nation are experiencing an immediate need for an alternative long lasting, en vironmentally safe and fuel resistant coating to preserve their airfield pavement assets. A prominent Northwest based engineering firm, WHP acific, recognized and anticipated this problem early and began to seek alternative green materials for both Oregon and Washington State Department of Aviation.

Green evaluations

WH Pacific teamed up with Portland based contractor Roger Langeliers Construction (RLC) to begin evaluation on potential high quality alternative coatings. WH Pacific's primary requirements for their clients were to find a protective runway coating that met a "skid neutral or b etter" su rface re sistance, m aintained environment safety, and was cost-effective over the long term.

The g rowing tea m c ailed on t he experience of Carbonyte Systems Inc. (CSI) to finalize specific mix designs of CarbonSeal-FR in August 2009.

CarbonSeal-FR consists of a b ase, medium pen asphalt emulsion which is prepared for advanced interfacial bond a nd shea r s trength t hrough the chemical "weaving" of polymer grafted an d d issolved gr ound tir e rubber (GTR) to make a superior rubberized a sphalt pavement coa ting. Daytime applications of CarbonSealFR involve a 2 0% c ut by volume but inorder to fa cilitate c uring fo r Hillsboro's nighttime hermes bag application, the CarbonSeal-FR would only be cut to 15%.

Extensive ev aluation o f t he Ca rbonSeal-FR included full scale field testing of skid resistance, utilizing a continuous slip friction tester. This type of runway measurement system meets a 11 FAA a nd I CAO sp ecifications fo r f riction mea suring d evices and d emonstrated t hat t he C arbonSeal-FR coatings were skid positive, achieving t he s kid neu trai orb etter requirement.

Mother Of The Groom Dresses

Oregon D epartment of A viation (ODA) a lso sp ent t ime ? alidating CarbonSeal-FR's ability to be immediately s triped u pon c uring. Prev ious systems used by ODA required several days of curing before striping. Upon approval and cooperation with the region's late season weather patterns, the near one million square foot runway job was set to kick off during the first week of September 2009.

On a nearly September evening, with air/pavement temperatures in the low 60s, crews began crack sealing operations at 7 p.m. By 10 RLCs project manager Jim Cross a nd h is spray c rews w ere po ised to e nter the runway and begin the first spray application of the CarbonSeal-