Ft. Carson Tank Marshalling Area - CO

Project Focus
IHC constructed approximately 10,000 square yards of 9” plain jointed PCCP for a primary staging area for artillery deployment of track vehicles, mostly tanks and Bradley armored personnel carriers. The facility is located at Fort Carson, Colorado, just south of Colorado Springs. The parking area is directly adjacent to tank trails and to the railroad loading docks.

Project Details
Schedule & Complexity
IHC was the PCCP subcontractor to Bryan Construction Company of Colorado Springs, a small business contractor specializing in government work. Timely project delivery was critical to the Army because of immediate deployment needs.

Construction & Innovation
In order to meet the high specification requirements for concrete, IHC manufactured the concrete on-site using a Hagan central mix ribbon-mixer. The pavement, pilot lanes at 28.5’ in width with 19’ filler lanes, was slipformed with a Guntert Zimmerman 850 slipform paver. This provided an efficient construction methodology to meet the 9.5’ maximum longitudinal joint spacing. Transverse joints were sawed at 11’ intervals. Joints were sealed with silicone. Longitudinal construction joints included an extruded keyway to maintain load transfer. Outside lane joints were tied to prevent separation.

Quality
The project had strict USACE specifications for concrete surface tolerances and edge slump. All tolerances were met without surface grinding utilizing efficient and quality slipform operations. The average strength of the concrete produced by IHC was over 6000 psi, far greater that the minimum required by specification of 4200 psi at 28 days.