Contemporary philippine arts from the regions_PPT_Module_12 [Autosaved] (1).pptx
Madeira´s airport
1.
2. The Airport’s runway expansion is one of the largest
and most complex civil engineering works
performed in Europe in the last decades.
The Madeira island Airport is located on the South
border of the island in a place named “Santa
Catarina”.
The need to increase the existent runway and the
lack of suitable plane lands in the island, led to the
decision of constructing a large prestressed concrete
structure, that extends the runway from about 1800
m to a total length of 2781 m.
3. The structure for extension of the Madeira island
airport is a bridge of unusual proportions that had to
be designed to withstand the loads of large
commercial airplanes.
This new runway extension was built over the ocean.
Instead of using landfill to construct the extension,
the runway sits on 180 columns.
4. The adopted structural design consisted in a series
of frames aligned perpendicularly to the runway
axis, with 32 meter long spans between them, and
which support a bi-directional prestressed concrete
slab with variable thickness.
5. The direct foundations have an octagonal shape and
a deployment area of nearly 100 m2.
The reinforced concrete indirect foundations are
connected by octagonal blocks supported by groups
of 8 moulded piles with a 1.5m diameter and lengths
which can reach as much as 62m.
The runway is located at a height of 58 m above the
sea level.
6. After it was completed, the Madeira Runway
extension won the Outstanding Structures Award by
the International Association of Bridge and
Structural Engineering.
7. The new runway is widely celebrated as a great
feat in architecture due to its sheer size and the
amount of labor it took to erect it.
The total construction costs for the extension
amounted to more than 500 million Euros, a
small price to pay considering pilots and
passengers can now land without fear.
8. The new airport runway can accommodate all
kinds of commercial and private aircraft and
more than three million passengers per year.