Airport Ostend-Bruges

Ostend-Bruges Airport: A Lesson in Circularity

Since April 2021, major work has been underway at Ostend-Bruges Airport to renovate aircraft parking apron 2 and extend its lifespan by 40 years. The work will be done in phases and carried out by Colas.

The project envisages 2 phases: each encompassing 70,000 m² of concrete pavement with foundation and renovation of the sewerage network. 30-cm thick concrete paving will be installed on a 20-cm thick sub-foundation, a 28-cm thick foundation and a 5-cm asphalt sandwich layer. The concrete paving will be laid in 10-m wide strips using large slipform pavers.

The concrete pavement is composed of two layers: a sub-layer and a top layer. The advantage here is that the special porphyry aggregate with increased wear resistance is only used in the top layer. Standard aggregate is then used in the sub-layer for high concrete strength.

Because aircraft loads are much higher than the usual loads in road construction, the road concrete is applied with a thickness of 30 cm, approximately 50% thicker than a traditional concrete road.

Colas built a temporary concrete plant at the airport site at the end of June. Up to 1000 m³ of road concrete is produced per day in two different types for the sub-layer and top layer, with 6 different aggregates as base material.

In the context of circularity and sustainability, the broken-out concrete from the old pavement will be recycled by a COPRO-certified mobile crusher into 0/40 concrete aggregate that will be reused in the foundation and sub-foundation layer of the aircraft parking apron.

Thanks to this reuse, the broken-out concrete will not need to be transported to another site, and no new (sub) foundation materials will need to be supplied for the project. This on-site way of working reduces the number of trucks on the road needed to implement this project and significantly improves the environmental impact.