CASE HISTORY

Ref: INT/ CH/ ZA/ PA010, Rev 01, June 2013

IVATO AIRPORT
MADAGASCAR
GROUND STABILIZATION AND ASPHALT REINFORCEMENT
Product: Mactex W1 4S / Macgrid AR 10.7
Problem
Engineers are continually faced with maintaining and
developing pavement infrastructure with limited financial
resources. Traditional pavement design and construction
practices require high quality materials for fulfilment of
construction standards. In many areas of the world, quality
materials are unavailable or in short supply. Due to these
constraints, engineers are often forced to seek alternative
designs using substandard materials, commercial
construction aids, and innovative design practices.
In 2008 at IVATO Airport in Madagascar Maccaferri SA was
invited to recommend a cost effective solution without
compromising on the structural requirements for sections of
the Taxiway and Parking Areas that were to be re-habilitated.
The originally design for the pavement structure required a
global thickness of 1200 mm consisting of hot mix asphalt
wearing course 100 mm thick (beton bitumineux); a base
course 350 mm thick consisting of an untreated crushed rock
gravel (GCNT 0/40) and a sub base of 750 mm thick
consisting of a mixture of the gravel in the base course and
river sand (decaissement zone p2).
The original design of the pavement structure

Solution
The inclusion of geosynthetic materials has proven to be
successful in the pavement layers. Geogrids and geotextiles
used within a pavement system perform two functions:
separation and reinforcement which resulted in a 17% cost
saving.
The separation function was achieved by placing a woven
geotextile Mactex W1 4S (40/40 kN/m) providing additional
reinforcement and separation medium to control the
contamination of the base course by fines migrating from the
subgrade and sub base. This resulted in a 30 % reduction in
the required thickness of the unbound base and sub base
layers for the same design life as demonstrated by Giroud
and Noiray and Sellmeijer.
The reinforcement of the asphalt was enhanced using a
geogrid made of glass fibre with very high mechanical
properties: tensile strength 100x100 kN/m and elongation at
rupture <4%.

OLCRACK output: increment of design life using Macgrid AR 10.7

Client:
AVIATION CIVILE DE MADAGASCAR/ADEMA
Main contractor:
DAIHO CORPORATION/SOGEA SATOM
Consultant:
LNTPB (Laboratoire Nationale des Travaux Publics)
Products used:
MACGRID AR 10.7 MACTEX W1 4S
Date of construction:
AUGUST 2008 - JUNE 2009

The design of reinforced pavements is an empirical mechanistic process and is based on the research commissioned
by the UK highways agency, which resulted in a design software for reinforced overlays (OLCRACK) and is currently
used by Maccaferris professional team. The results of the
crack reflection analysis of the reinforced overlay using the
OLCRACK program show the equivalence in terms of design life between the original unreinforced asphalt layer (100
mm thickness) and the reinforced one (80 mm thickness
with Macgrid AR 10.7).

MACGRID AR 10.7

The reinforced pavement with reduced thickness

Mactex W1 4S

Placement of the Mactex W1 4S

MacGrid AR 10.7

Placement of the crushed rocks on top of the Mactex

W1 4S

Completed section

2013 Maccaferri. All rights reserved. Maccaferri will enforce Copyright.

Placing of the asphlat onto the Macgrid AR 10.7

Final result

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