1. Building an
Airport Over a
Swamp, Mexico

2. Mexico City new international airport is one
of the world's biggest airport infrastructure
projects.

3. 12,500 Hectares
4000 Destinations
6 Runways
57 Million Passengers Annually

4. THE CHALLENGE
It is being built over a swamp.

5. Located on the bed of the
former Lake Texcoco, the soil is
soft, saturated and swampy.
The upper layer is 25 cm of clay
with a 1% CBR.
The deep layer is 60-meter clay
mud of 0.6% CBR.

6. Conventional Solutions

7. OPTION #1 | Road Construction Using Aggregate and Asphalt
The weight would cause the upper layer to break and the whole structure to sink.
Why it
wouldn’t
work

8. OPTION #2 | Soil removal and replacement
Because of the huge quantities of earth moving that this solution involves.
Why it
wouldn’t
work

9. OPTION #3 | Chemical Soil Stabilization
The machinery would break the soil and sink, it is also time consuming…
Why it
wouldn’t
work

10. The only possible option:
Geosynthetic Mechanical Soil Reinforcement
But which?

11. Test #1 | Nonwoven Geotextile and Geogrid Layers
The surface developed potholes and loaded trucks simply sunk in the soil.
That didn’t
work all too
well…

12. Test #2 | 2 layers of geogrid
That also
failed…

13. Test #3 | HDPE Geocells
The lack of stiffness,
the high creep and
the low tensile
strength of HDPE
geocells were
proven to be
unsuitable.

14. Neoloy® Geocells- The only qualified solution
After 4 months of testing it became clear:

15. The new
technology
enables
building
runways and
railways on any
type of soil.
Nano-Polymeric Alloy (NPA).

16. Why Neoloy
Geocells? High Elastic
Stiffness
1
Creep
Resistance
2
High Tensile
Strength
3

17. How Does
Neoloy Geocell
Reinforcement
Work?

18. Vertical stress distributed
laterally plus forces exhibited
on cell walls
With Neoloy geocell
reinforcement

19. THE SOLUTION

20. A non-woven geotextile
and geogrid are first laid.
Next, Neoloy geocells were
installed and infilled with 12
cm of light weight volcanic
rock infill with an additional
3 cm minimum overfill.

21. The remaining subbase
layer was infilled and
compacted, and the
asphalt concrete
surface layer was
paved on top.

22. THE RESULTS

23. 60% 30%
1
Year
Less Road Weight Less Asphalt Less Construction Time

25. • Premium
Manufacturing
• Engineering Support
• Guaranteed
Performance
PRS Geo-
Technologies
end-to-end
Solution