From mid-August to early September 2023, special grooves were cut into the concrete across the axis of a 1.1km section of the runway at Ingolstadt Manching Airport (ETSI). These grooves are precisely defined by the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) in terms of width, depth and spacing, and are used to drain rainwater from the runway in order to prevent aquaplaning.  The executing company of this project was the German company Silco Tec Umweltschutzsysteme GmbH, which already has substantial experience in the field of grooving. With regards to the machine, Silco Tec chose the PC1505XL grinder and groover from the Tyrolit subsidiary Diamond Products, as well as the respective Tyrolit diamond saw blades with ‘TGD’ technology. 

66,000m² grooved in 19 days

The runway at Manching Airport is 60m wide and is divided into 6m x 6m fields. On the grooving shaft of the machine, the cutting blades were mounted in such a way that each 6m wide field could be processed in five passes, with the grooves reaching up to approximately 15cm towards the traverse joints. In total, an area of 66,000m2 was ground in 19 days with this method. 

After a short grinding-in phase of the new saw blades, the feed rate of the machine was increased to 12m/min and so the daily output required for being right on schedule was achieved without any problems. The grinding pattern and the edges of the grooves turned out to be excellent. The powerful machine integrated extraction system of the PC1505XL extracted almost all concrete slurry produced and the residues were then disposed of in accordance with the regulations. 

Through intense project planning in advance as well as onsite support by the application engineer from Tyrolit and the two grinding experts from Diamond Products Inc., USA, the project was successfully completed by Silco Tec Umweltschutzsysteme GmbH on time and also in an impressive manner.