VALPARAISO/PORTER COUNTY REGIONAL AIRPORT/RUNWAY 9-27/TAXIWAY REHABILITATION

When it was determined that Runway 9-27 and Taxiway A pavements, installed in the 1990s, were not reaching their service life without significant maintenance, the Porter County Municipal Airport Authority selected Woolpert to determine if the pavements were deteriorating faster than normal. After developing a pavement construction chronology, site investigation and data collection plan, Woolpert deployed its in-house mobile mapping LiDAR technology. Woolpert’s advanced technology solution produced over 30,000 indexed high-resolution images and LiDAR point cloud with more than 1.69 billion points. The four-point per square inch spacing supported a digital terrain model, used to support the pavement evaluations, with a vertical accuracy of 0.10 foot and 95% confidence on hard surfaces.

The Woolpert team isolated under-performing areas using non-destructive testing and developed options for rehabilitating or reconstructing the pavements. The client selected full-depth reclamation (FDR), combining in-place recycled materials with a Portland Cement mixture to stabilize the aggregate base layer for paving. This non-traditional airport construction concept required—and received—a rare, FAA-approved Modification of Standards for use at the Porter County Regional Airport. Bid results projected the construction costs at $11.4 million.

Woolpert developed alternatives for rehabilitating the inefficient, high-intensity, runway-edge lighting system. In collaboration with the manufacturer, Woolpert designed a cost-effective system with new power cables, incandescent edge lights, LED technology and programmable runway exit lights. After FAA approval of the FDR approach, Woolpert completed the project design and prepared bid documents for a flexible, multi-year construction phasing.