Sea-Tac Airport third runway

Location: Sea-Tac Airport

Owner/developer: Port of Seattle

Project team: Icon Materials, general contractor; Gary Merlino Construction Co., concrete contractor and ready-mix supplier; Port of Seattle, architect and structural engineer

Portland cement concrete was selected for Sea-Tac Airport’s third runway for its durability and positive lifecycle analysis.

The runway is 8,500 feet long and 150 feet wide. Eight 100-foot-wide taxiways were also built.

Crews used slipform paving on the runway, taking five months to place 264,000 square yards of 16- and 17-inch-thick concrete.

All of the project’s 126,000 cubic yards of concrete were produced on site by the paving contractor and aggregates were trucked in from local suppliers.

The on-site concrete batch plant had to be paved and no storm or process water could leave the site without being treated to meet strict environmental standards.

Smoothness specifications for the new runway allowed for a maximum Profile Index of 7 inches per mile as measured by a profilograph. The actual number was 2.9 inches.