RAF Cosford

PRODUCT USED

Permaban's Permasteel and Permashake Quartz SRF Light Grey Dry-Shake concrete topping hardener were selected by the architects.

CLIENT PROFILE

The Royal Air Force has one of the greatest aviation museums in the world and also one of the biggest. It provides a fascinating insight to some of the key events in modern history.

The Royal Air Force Museum in Cosford, Shropshire houses 70 aircraft and is home to War Planes, Transport & Training and Research & Development collections.

Opened to the public in the first quarter of 2007, this new addition to the already popular museum houses all three of the Britain's V-Class bomber aircraft- Vulcan, Victor and Valiant.  Incredibly, the building is able to house much more and counts a variety of tracked vehicles employed by the Special Air Service among its exhibits.

BUSINESS NEEDS

The nature and size of the RAF exhibits inevitably put constraints on the size and shape of the building.  This, in turn, offered some interesting challenges to the specialist contractor- Snowden Flooring.  The key criteria for the floor being:

• High loadings & awkward shapes
• Fast-track construction
• High durability (especially under tracked vehicles)
• Minimum maintenance
• Vitality of appearance under very low natural building light
• Cost

SOLUTION

The light grey colour and high degree of reflectance which the quartz brings to the product, were deciding factors for the RAF design team.

RESULTS

The topping choice and has proven to be a good one; all agreed after several tracked vehicles - including- 2 tanks- had been driven into the display space.  The high level of abrasion resistance and durability are provided across the slab by a combination of the dry shake topping hardener and the steel fibers which are mixed into the concrete itself.