President Enrique Peña Nieto announced on September 2, 2014, the plan to build a new airport in Mexico City which would become a national symbol. Three runways will be built prior to becoming an operative airport, although it will be expandable up to six, the terminal will have around 800,000 square meters and it is expected to serve up to 57 millions passengers.
Mexico City, the capital of Mexico with a population close to 22 million inhabitants has a huge problem due to the land where the city lies in.
Originally, the capital was located on an island surrounded by a lake, Texcoco Lake. Over the years with the increase of the population of the city the water level was decreasing until today when the surroundings of Mexico City are composed of dry soil. However, the low soil resistance with a high content of clays is the cause of the collapse of the city at 10 centimeters per year.
The existing airport, called Benito Juarez International Airport has been dealing with the sinking problem, as a result, a connection between terminal 1 & 2 was closed due to a level difference between both terminal as the city sinks.
The land subsidence is widely known in the city, causing some damages to the existing infrastructure though. Some years ago, a waste water canal which flowed out of the city changed its own flow and started to flow into the city direction, pumping where required to face this issue.
In connection with the new airport location and geotechnical aspects, the engineering consultant team found out that the land where the new iconic airport will be located is sinking around 2.5 cm per month. Many studies, research trials on the site were carried out in order to minimize the impact in the future to the main structure.
The whole structure will be placed onto concrete slabs which will be anchored with concrete piles. Each solid slab will have a dimension of 20 by 20 meters. Around 3,000 will be required to secure the airport structure.
Another feature of this airport will be related with the control tower. Due to the shape of the tower itself, the foundations will be one of the most expensive in the world for a control tower. Seismic issues have to be considered during the design of this structure as Mexico City is located in a seismic zone as well.
The Control Tower foundations will be composed by an isolated solid slab which will be held inside a crown foundation with concrete piles secure to the rock mass stratus.
References:
- Stronach, Jia, Uribe, Richter et al. The Case of Mexico DF: A sinking city.
- Lecture by Arup team held in the Institution of Civil Engineers, London, United Kingdom, early April 2017.
- Foster + Partnets.
- Wikipedia.
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