RAF Fairford - Pavement Joints

CLIENT

RAF Fairford is a Royal Air Force (RAF) station in Gloucestershire which is currently a standby airfield and therefore not in everyday use. Its most prominent use in recent years has been as an airfield for United States Air Force B-52s during the 2003 Iraq War, Operation Allied Force in 1999, and the first Gulf War in 1991. It is the US Air Force's only European airfield for heavy bombers. RAF Fairford is a Forward Operating Location made available to the United States by the UK Government.

RAF Fairford is also the home of the Royal International Air Tattoo (RIAT), an annual air display. RIAT is one of the largest airshows in the world.

Lagan Aviation & Infrastructure were awarded the Design and Build of the new stands for the North East Taxiway and Ramps at RAF Fairford in 2022.

Working for Lagan Aviation & Infrastructure the LAML team was employed to carry out saw cutting and joint sealing and the installation and setting of new AGL seating pots in the stands and Taxiway.

CHALLENGE

During the works period over 30,000 lm of construction, isolation, contraction and expansion joints were saw cut into the new concrete stands.  Contraction joints were installed in the slot drains around the stands.  All joints had to be cut with chamfered edges. Once sawing was complete the joints were washed out, prepped and then sealed using fuel resistant joint sealant installed with our specialist extruded sealant machine.

We installed 2250 m2 of high performance joint using Maxi-Flex/Armourscreed 100 and over 850m of interface joint using N2 hot applied joint sealant. 

BENEFITS

Saw cutting in the newly laid concrete slabs could not take place until the required curing/drying period had taken place.

Installation of joints and flexible sealant allows the concrete slabs to expand and contract next to each other with weather temperature changes and with the weight of the military aircraft and trafficking, preventing cracking and damage to the slabs.

Fuel resistant sealant prevents any fuel spillages or de-icing materials entering the joints in the pavement and entering the sublayers of the pavement.