Peña Boulevard

Pena Boulevard is the gateway to one of the world’s busiest airports-Denver International Airport. The road is a four lane divided highway which provides access to and from the airport and traffic cannot be interfered with. The median between the roads is very wide. The first step of the project was to add a two lane asphalt road down the median the entire length of the project. This road was to accommodate the inbound or outbound traffic during construction of the new concrete highway. Pena Boulevard from 2^nd Creek to 64^th Avenue was a concrete road which had a very severe ASR problem. The road was requiring a lot of maintenance and needed to be replaced. The road was originally built in the early 90’s.

The project had 86,258 SY of 11” doweled concrete paving. The project involved rubblizing the existing concrete in place to 3” minus and placed 3” of Class 6 road base on top of the rubblized concrete. The class 6 material was made from recycled concrete pavement. The tie-ins on both ends were lowered to provide a smooth transition into the existing roadway. These transitions were 300 feet long. After the roadway was paved a 12’ shoulder was added with curb and cable rail to provide better drainage and safety. Drainage rundowns were installed every 1000 feet to control drainage to specific locations. Trench drain was installed the entire length of the project to provide even better drainage. The airport uses a lot of magnesium chloride so vegetation is hard to maintain. The drainage features minimized the location of mag chloride run off. After both inbound and outbound were completed the temporary asphalt road in the median was removed. The entire area was top soiled and seeded.

Castle Rock Construction designed an optimized concrete mix for this project. The goal of this mix was to produce a consistent mix which could maintain a Coarseness Factor (CF) of 60 and a Workability Factor (WF) of 35 in a modified Shilstone Graph. This was accomplished with the use of a four bin feeder and pug mill being added to the concrete batch plant. The purpose of this proportioning and mixing was to aid in the production of a more consistent concrete batch and a better platform for the concrete paver with the ultimate goal of producing a smoother ride on the concrete paving. The optimized mix is a positive factor in the production of smoother and more durable concrete pavements. The end result was a very consistent concrete being produced and very good rides on this project. The design specifications were attained on this project for strength, depth and ride.

The construction team’s efforts overcame many problems to finish the project ahead of time and within budget. The project is aesthetically pleasing and was built with as little inconvenience as possible to the surrounding area and flying public.