Leading up to the city’s 400th anniversary celebration in 2008, the Aéroport de Québec Inc. initiated a $65 million expansion of its terminal that included nearly 200 exterior exposed structural steel columns that are protected by a coating system from Tnemec. “All of the columns are within six inches of the terminal’s glass wall, so resistance to UV light was critical,” according to Tnemec coating consultant Raymond Quirion. “The owner of the Aéroport de Québec was refered to a similar project in Denver. The owner of the Denver airport confirmed that the Tnemec coating system was working well.”
Each two-story column was prepared by the fabricator in accordance with SSPCSP6/NACE No. 3 Commercial Blast Cleaning prior to receiving a shop-applied coat of Series 394 PerimePrime, a moisture-cured, MIO/zinc filled urethane primer that provides excellent corrosion resistance.
After the columns were erected inside the terminal, they were touched up with PerimePrime, followed by two spray-applied coats of Series 1075U EnduraShield II, an aliphatic acrylic polyurethane in the color white. Endura-Shield II is specially formulated to resist the damaging effect of UV light. Overall, 45 gallons of PerimePrime and 160 gallons of Endura-Shield II were required for the project.
“The close proximity of the windows to the columns required them to be masked while the coatings were being applied,” Quirion noted. “The applicator indicated the coating was very easy to apply and the finish was great. He also commented that the coating system looked very durable and there is plenty of confidence that the coating system will perform as it should.”
In 2006, Aéroport de Québec launched its initiative to increase the terminal’s capacity to 1.2 million passengers per year. The project included a reconfiguration of the terminal on two levels, a restructuring of the baggage handling area and arrivals area, as well as reconfiguration and enlargement of the waiting rooms. The improvements were complete in June 2008. Today, Aéroport de Québec supports nearly 400 flights a week to destinations in North America, South America and Europe. Overall, more than $200 million will be invested over a 20-year period to develop the airport’s infrastructure.