Comalapa Airport-Soils Testing and Analysis

Polk County, Florida

Project Description/Services

Madrid Engineering Group, Inc. was selected to perform soil testing on specimens from an airport construction site in San Salvador, the capitol of El Salvador in Central America. The El Salvador International Airport, more commonly known as the Comalapa Airport, is a joint military and civil facility and is being expanded to accommodate international traffic. Construction is ongoing and involves a new hangar at the existing facility.  MEG was contracted by ATI Drilling, Inc. to analyze samples and provide foundation recommendations based on the findings thereof.  This case was interesting in that the soils involved were different than those typically encountered by MEG.  The soils, hailing from the “Ring of Fire”, were composed of granular volcanic ash.  The constituent particles were typically fine sand-sized ranging up to fine pea-sized gravel, and very were highly friable leading to… un-conventional… compaction specifications.  MEG was able to supply design recommendations for the new hangar involving deep pile foundations. MEG completed an extensive round of laboratory soil testing under contract of our client.  Samples were procured and sealed on site in San Salvador and shipped to MEG’s laboratory in Bartow, Florida.  Testing included on the order of 30 stacked sieve gradation tests, around 10 Atterberg limits tests, and a handful of in-situ moisture and density tests.