The Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Jakarta, Indonesia, is deemed one of the largest airports in Asia and 17th world’s busiest airport with an annual passenger capacity of around 63 million (as of 2017). In order to deal with the increasing number of flights (now reportedly at over 447 thousand flight movements per year) and to optimise the time taken for ground handling of individual aircraft, a new connecting taxiway will be constructed to link the existing runways at the east side of the airport. Currently, there is only one connecting taxiway located at the west side of the airport that supported all aircraft movement.

PT. Bauer Pratama Indonesia, the local subsidiary of Bauer Spezialtiefbau GmbH, was commissioned by PT. Hutama Karya as main contractor for PT. Angkasa Pura II (Persero) – Indonesia’s airport company and the biggest airport operator in the country – to carry out the ground improvement work for the construction of the new taxiway.

The East Connection Taxiway Phase 1 project included two main tasks: extensive ground improvement for the connection between the north and south runways, and foundation work for taxiway bridges over the airport’s main access road. This project is a continuation of the previous Secondary Apron project that was completed in May 2017, located at the north side of the airport where Bauer also carried out ground improvement work on a 98,300 sq m area as initial part of East Cross Taxiway.

The ground improvement work is needed to increase the capacity of in-situ soil prior to pavement work. After improvement, the in-situ soil - which is dominantly soft to medium stiff silty clay - is expected to reach a CBR value (mechanical strength) of 6% under the pavement layer and the allowable settlement at a maximum of 100 mm in 10 years after construction.

The ground improvement was executed with 5- to 16-m-deep full displacement columns (FDC) over a total area of 199,000 sq m. And for foundation of the taxiway bridges, a total of 1,072 bored piles with a diameter of 1.2 m was drilled to a depth of up to 37 m. Three Bauer BG 14 drill rigs, one BG 22, one BG 28 and its accessories were in operation. The project commenced in February 2018 and was completed over a period of eight months in October 2018.

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