Walter Yu, P.E., LEED AP

Edwards AFB with main runway pictured

Civil engineering projects rarely go as planned and almost always require problem-solving in real-time.

A number of factors can cause delays to a project and impact the delivery date to the owner and end users.

And the new runway project at the main Edwards AFB runway completed last year was no exception.

Located near the Rogers Dry Lake Bed (between Los Angeles and San Bernadino counties), the base has served as a major testing facility for most US military aircraft since the 1950’s, according to Wikipedia.

Growing up in Southern California, we would read about the test flights made by Chuck Yeager, including his flight to break the sound barrier in the Bell X-1 aircraft.

A joint-venture team between CH2MHill Denver and Interstate Highway Construction (IHC – based in Centennial, Colo.) completed the $200-million contract to deliver a 15,000-foot long (almost 3 miles long), 300-foot wide runway in about two years while facing a number of technical challenges along the way, including:

• Developing a design mix capable of handling aircraft landings, including space shuttles
• Locating and delivering materials required for concrete and sub-base (layer of rock beneath the runway to support the concrete)
• Phasing of the project to incorporate a temporary runway and transition to new runway

The concrete design mix was developed by the CH2M design team and took 36 trial mixes (each requiring individual batching and testing) to find the optimum water/cement ratio, aggregate type and admixtures. The resulting mix was a success and has since performed through two space shuttle landings at the base.

Sourcing material for the concrete and aggregate proved to be a challenge due to the remote location of the site. In addition, the rock needed varied between quarry sites in the area. The solution in this case was to self-perform the mining and processing of material on-site to prevent the risk of mixing different materials from off-site quarries.

Finally, in phasing the project between the temporary and new runways, CH2MHill and IHC partnered in a design-build schedule to fast-track progress. Under design-build, projects are constructed with the final details of design still in progress – this allows for the project to move forward while designers are ironing out last minute details.

The finished product included almost a half-million cubic yards of old runway removed and a 13,000-foot long runway. Given that the runway is mission critical to the Air Force, such a project is a demonstration of problem-solving in real-time to overcome project challenges.