Vancouver International Airport’s south runway receives facelift

A gateway to the Pacific, the Vancouver International Airport (YVR) offers air services for passenger traffic and cargo. In 2004, YVR served 15.7 million passengers and handled 230,000 tonnes of cargo. Passenger traffic for 2005 is expected to exceed 16.4 million.

Two major runways, the north runway and the south runway, serve the airport. Originally constructed in 1952, the south runway is the primary runway. The south runway handles approximately 65% of all aircraft at YVR and is the only runway that allows longhaul, wide-body aircraft to takeoff.

In 1985, Associated Engineering completed design and construction of rehabilitation works for the south runway. On this project, we pioneered nighttime paving procedures to reduce impacts on airport operations. This pavement structure served YVR for 18 years - a remarkable period for a major international airport.

In 2003, the Vancouver International Airport Authority embarked on a $33 million project to upgrade the south runway. Upgrades were required to maintain safe and constant aircraft operational conditions, improve the security and reliability of the airfield electrical systems, and replace components that had reached the end of their service life. Once again, the Airport Authority awarded consulting engineering services for the south runway rehabilitation and upgrades to Associated Engineering. Led by Project Manager, Dave Anderson, Associated Engineering provided project management, preliminary design, detailed design, tendering assistance, and resident inspection services during construction for the project.

The project consists of an asphalt overlay for the south runway, upgrades to the airfield electrical infrastructure, replacement of existing electrical equipment, airfield lighting control system modifications, Category II upgrades to the runway, taxiway inset lights on Taxiway L, and conduit and centreline inset light cans within the boundaries of the new overlay that will accommodate future upgrades to the runway.

The asphalt overlay involved replacing the top layer of asphalt on the 3335 metre long runway with a new layer 65 millimetres thick. Electrical upgrades included state-of-the-art approach lighting, as well as new runway airfield lighting systems. Lighting was brought up to current Category II/III standards, consistent with the north runway lighting system, which Associated Engineering designed in 1996. The upgraded lighting system allows aircraft to land in low visibility—down to 200 metres for Category III lighting. Nearly 1000 new or replacement inset lights were added to the south runway system, and more than 500 kilometres of electrical cable were installed.

“The south runway receives air traffic 24 hours everyday,” advises Project Manager, Dave Anderson. “Therefore, we had to develop a plan to maintain the airfield operations during construction, while keeping overall costs to a minimum.” The project phasing and contracting strategy divided work into eight contracts: paving and electrical in 2003 and paving, electrical, ductbank, approach lighting, airfield electrical, and field electrical centre in 2004 and 2005. Dave reports, “This strategy helped to meet the accelerated schedule and provided enhanced value to the client. We also worked closely with various airport departments to anticipate and address any issues that could arise during construction.”

Other special aspects of the project comprised the following:

• Polymer-modified asphalt to improve performance.
• New technologies for grade control resulting in uniform and smooth pavement.
• Ductbank installation methods to minimize impact to the pavement surface elevations.
• Electrical installation techniques that improve performance.
• Nighttime construction to minimize disruption to airport operations.

Associated Engineering staff involved on the project included Dave Anderson (Project Manager), Peter Bakker, Sang Chung, John Dagenais, Nelson Dos Santos, Doug Falkins, Ken Fudge, Jake Gentles, Grant Harder, Tony Hasiuk, Kumar Kumaran, Lester Marr, Ken Neave, Dean Reidt, Robin Uren, Mark Willson, and Richard Zhou.