Fulton Hogan’s recent works at the Melbourne Airport have highlighted the effectiveness of rapid-hardening concrete that can withstand full loads after just one to two hours of production. How did the product perform and how does it fare against conventional products? Roads & Infrastructure Magazine finds out.
Fulton Hogan started on roads, and in the last 90 years have gained vast experience across a range of sectors, including airport airside solutions.
As one of Australia’s largest and most experienced provider of runway, taxiway and apron construction, upgrade and maintenance services, the company understands the extreme performance requirements of airport infrastructure and the unique demands on its owners and operators. Its latest works at the Melbourne Airport, through a new division focused on innovative projects, further adds to this legacy.
Engineered IQ is a specialist division of Fulton Hogan, providing end-to-end solutions for projects that may differ from Fulton Hogan’s contemporary construction portfolio.
Nitin Sharma, Project Manager – Fulton Hogan, says Engineered IQ gives the company the opportunity to look further into project and product types that could be adopted by the wider construction industry.
“At Fulton Hogan, we do a lot of construction projects such as roads and bridges. Engineered IQ looks at areas adjacent to construction, where we could provide a function or support to our normal construction process,” Sharma says.
Proving results
One product that Fulton Hogan’s Engineered IQ division was interested in was Concretum® Q-FLASH 2/20, a rapid-hardening concrete designed with airport pavements in mind. Having been used in Europe since the early 2000s, the product already had a proven track record of being able to withstand full loads after just one to two hours, with the open time able to be adjusted to suit.
“We went out to try and find the best cement manufacturer for high early strength concrete. Concretum stood out to us because they had done a lot of work internationally. They were also working with a new compound that led to a lot of extra advantages. The support that Concretum provided was also very good – they came out to do some of the trials with us, providing their expertise so we weren’t just staring into the darkness,” Sharma says.
“Some other manufacturers might say ‘here’s our product, here’s the price’ and that’s it. That technical background was something that we appreciated because it gives you more confidence in the quality of the product. I think the client can appreciate that as well.”
An infrastructure rectification project at Melbourne Airport was just one project that popped up on Engineered IQ’s radar, where 144 airport slabs required replacement.
Due to shorter time restrictions, the Engineered IQ team is using Concretum’s products to support a faster turnaround time for each individual slab.
After expressing an interest in using the product, Concretum supported on-site trials by Engineered IQ at Fulton Hogan’s sites.
Regular tweaks were made to the mix design throughout the duration of Engineered IQ’s on-site trials, with Concretum also providing expertise. One example was the difference in the mixes’ slump’.
“A traditional mix might have only a 60-millimetre slump, which is normal for this type of pavement material. This is a proprietary product – we’re pouring from volumetric trucks, so you don’t want to have a really low slump mix because it could get caught in the truck and cause other issues,” Sharma says.
“The last thing we wanted to do was to complete the project and have the surfaces cracking again in six months, let alone ten or twenty years. We want to deliver a long-term solution. [For this product] the proof was in the pudding.”
Patrick Stähli, Co-CEO and COO – Concretum Construction Science AG, says this support is considered standard for its clients across the globe.
“To do a project like this, the support is very important. It’s important to have that understanding and to be able to speak the same technical language, to understand the people that you’re working with. That’s something that we’re really great at and some companies maybe don’t do as much,” Stähli says.
“It’s also important for us that when we do a project abroad, that the producer of the concrete is also the one to place it down. They’re invested in the job, they want what’s best for both parties. That makes the job much easier.”
Concretum’s process enables the company to quickly catch up to speed, creating a greater understanding of the client’s requirements, as well as any foreseeable geographical challenges.
“That’s part of getting the project started, understanding the environmental conditions, properties, differences in raw materials such as aggregate and sand and so forth,” Stähli says.
“We as experts can calibrate these factors at the beginning of a project to greater understand the challenges that our clients face. That way when we are supporting them on-site or remotely, we know what they’re talking about. We work very closely with our customers.”
Felicia Nägele, Co-CEO and CCO – Concretum Construction Science AG believes the partnership has been “very valuable” for both parties, who she says see eye-to-eye on many aspects.
“I think that we’re very much on the same level and understanding. Getting to exchange with people from Fulton Hogan is very valuable to us, so if there’s anything that doesn’t go to plan, we’re informed,” Nägele says.
“That goes both ways too. We can inform them on the logistics side, the production side or whatever it might be. It’s extremely helpful to have that open conversation and work through any problems.”
Fulton Hogan’s partnership with Concretum will see the infrastructure provider become the only Australian company to use this range of Concretum products.
“I believe that with Fulton Hogan we can see this product used across all of Australia and New Zealand. That’s my goal, to have this product used across roads, bridges, airports and wherever the contractor wants to reduce downtimes,” Nägele says.
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Eifers™ and the future
“The other side of the project was the physical side – ‘how are we actually going to put this into the ground?’ We acknowledged that we needed half a dozen volumetric trucks. We already had two at Fulton Hogan, but we had to work out where we were going to get the other four,” Sharma says.
“It’s about searching for a company that can partner with you, who’s been working with high early strength concrete for a while and has that expertise. That’s where Eifers™ came in.”
Eifers specialise in time-critical civil infrastructure projects, with its experience making them an ideal construction partner in the aviation space, having completed several projects for the Melbourne Airport.
“We had our partners on board, we had the product, now it was about going to the client and showcasing the results of our trials,” Sharma says.
“It can be hard in some aspects, for someone to believe there’s a product that has the strength to sit a plane on it within just a few hours of being poured. Once we did those presentations to Melbourne Airport and showed them the trial results, they were really impressed.”
Following the pitch and on-site trials, Melbourne Airport were happy for Concretum Q-FLASH 2/20 to be used. Works on the project were conducted at night to minimise disruptions to airport traffic. From 10pm, each slab would be removed, prepped, poured, set and checked. By 5am, each slab was able to support airport traffic again.
Sharma says it’s been “pretty seamless” for his team to adjust to using the product, which provides greater control over essential factors such as workability and setting times.
“Some products that we’ve used in the past were going hard basically as soon as it came out of the truck; it was losing its workability. Whereas with Concretum’s product, we could adjust our admixtures and keep it workable for the range that we specified,” Sharma says.
“We could have between 15 minutes or up to two hours of workability time depending on what we wanted. With traditional high early strength concrete, sometimes you’ve got to go hammer and tong straight away. This concrete has been really good in the sense that we’ve got time to do the work and still get the strength that we need.”
Fulton Hogan’s Engineered IQ are set to complete all 144 slabs by the end of February.
Following the application of Concretum Q-FLASH 2/20, the team at Engineered IQ are considering future opportunities involving Concretum products.
“There’re quite a few leads for us to potentially use this product on more projects. It’s been shown to be very successful in what we’ve done so far for the airport. We’re getting interest from other airports and even road projects as well. There’s traction and more people are getting on board because they’ve seen that it actually works,” Sharma says.
Sharma adds that there’s plenty of projects in the pipeline for Engineered IQ, which he expects to grow considerably in the future.
“We’ve got a few ideas growing that we think will be really good for the construction market, whether that’s internally at Fulton Hogan or externally,” he says.
“It’s a really exciting time for the business division, because we have the opportunity to make it what we want. I like being able to innovate and show how something different could be beneficial to projects in the future. It’s really exciting in that regard.”
This article was originally published in the February edition of our magazine. To read the magazine, click here.