Collaboration
An industry-education partnership begins work on a new runway
By Edward A. Johnson, Executive Director, Piedmont Triad Int’l Airport
October 2001
About the Author
Edward A. "Ted" Johnson has served as the executive director of the Piedmont Triad International Airport in Greensboro, NC, since 1993. He is a graduate of Duke University with a B.S. in Civil Engineering, and is past-president of the North Carolina Airports Association and currently serves on its board. He can be reached at (336) 665-5600 or e-mail to [email protected].
It’s not often that an airport project combines first-rate research, educational opportunities for graduate students in engineering, sophisticated technology and a community partnership that includes an engineering firm and a local state university. But at Piedmont Triad International Airport (PTI), we’ve managed to pull just such a project together, all in an effort to build a better runway.
We’re particularly interested in runway
technology here at the Triad airport, which serves the greater Greensboro,
Winston-Salem, and High Point region of North Carolina, because we are
about to embark on a major construction project. FedEx has selected our
airport for its mid-Atlantic hub, scheduled to open in 2005.
The $300 million hub will anchor FedEx’s
East Coast operations, eventually employing 1,500 people and processing
104,000 packages each day. As part of the project, the airport will build
a 9,000-foot runway parallel to its existing main runway.
The runway and hub plan is working its way
through the Federal Aviation Administration’s environmental impact
process; we won’t have final word on the project until later this
year. But we want to be ready to start construction once the FAA has given
its final approval.
The Players
That’s why we have teamed up with the
North Carolina A&T State University College of Engineering, the Federal
Aviation Administration Center of Excellence for Airport Pavement Technology
at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), and Trigon Engineering,
a local engineering firm that has done a good bit of work for the airport.
It’s a winning combination. North Carolina
A&T State University (NC A&T) in Greensboro is a nationally recognized
institution that is a top producer of African-American engineers in the
country. The FAA Center at the University of Illinois is on the cutting
edge of pavement technology and our airport is on the verge of becoming
a major player in cargo distribution.
Together, we are developing plans for the
proposed new parallel runway at PTI.
Program Genesis
The collaboration began as the idea of Dick
Wells, P.E., president of Trigon. He has a long-standing relationship
with the Department of Civil Engineering at NC A&T and serves on the Department’s
Advisory Board. PTI has worked with Trigon for many years, so when he
proposed a project with NC A&T, I was eager to listen.
I met with Wells and Dr. Reza Salami, PE,
associate dean for graduate and research programs in the NC A&T College
of Engineering, to develop the program. During the process, I had the
chance to visit the FAA Center of Excellence at the University of Illinois
and was highly impressed with their facilities, vast experience, and their
ideas about working on the FedEx project.
An Experience
The first part of the collaboration was
the opportunity for five NC A&T graduate students to gain hands-on experience
during a 12-week education and work program at UIUC. The students spent
the summer in Illinois expanding their knowledge of runway design and
construction and researching material compositions that can be used on
the new runway at PTI.
While in Illinois, the students visited
the FedEx hub at Indianapolis Int’l and attended the American Society
of Civil Engineers Airport Pavement Conference in Chicago.
Working with UIUC and Wells, the students
tested local soil and aggregates to determine how to build a runway that
will last longer, require less maintenance, and ultimately be more cost-effective.
The new runway, critical to FedEx’s
time-sensitive operations, must be engineered to withstand the planned
air traffic and the climate of the area.
Now that the students have returned to North
Carolina, they (along with their professors and Wells) are finalizing
their research. We look forward to reviewing their work.
But the collaboration doesn’t stop
there. During the construction process, students and faculty of NC A&T
may monitor and test the material performance. Once the runway is in use,
they may continue to analyze its performance with their state-of-the-art
equipment.
We’re excited about the work that the
students are doing and believe that the partnership will benefit everyone
involved. The airport gets state-of-the-art runway technology. The students
receive unbeatable real-world experience, and both NC A&T State University
and the airport gain from the strong ties that are being built between
the University and PTI.
What’s more, the airport can look forward
to reaping the benefits of having access to NC A&Ts knowledge and
technology, and university faculty and students have a new laboratory
where they are able to apply their knowledge to practical situations.
The program is truly a win-win for everyone
involved.