German Contractor Rehabilitates Highway In A Single Weekend With WIRTGEN & VÖGELE Equipment

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WIRTGEN cold planers and VÖGELE pavers worked round-the-clock to replace 2.2 miles of asphalt between 10 p.m. Friday and 5 a.m. Monday. (Photo courtesy of Liebherr.)

Germans not only enjoy high-speed motorways, they also build motorways at high speeds. Contractor JOHANN BUNTE rehabilitated the asphalt part of a 2.2-mile (3.6-kilometer) stretch of road in a weekend, opening it back up for traffic just as the new working week got underway. The company used WIRTGEN cold milling machines and VÖGELE pavers to redo the heavily trafficked section of the A3 highway near Duisburg in western Germany, which was completely closed in either direction from 10 p.m. on Friday to 5 a.m. on Monday morning.

“This means that in a weekend, we can complete work which would otherwise have held up traffic for several weeks—and in the end, achieve even better quality,” says highway authority Strassen.NRW Department Head Thomas Oehler.

Working For The Weekend

JOHANN BUNTE was tasked with replacing both the surface and binder courses of a 72,000-square-yard (60,000-square-meter) area in just 55 hours. After separating the dilapidated asphalt section from the serviceable concrete of the right-hand carriageway with a side milling wheel, the contractor used four WIRTGEN cold milling machines, including W 210i, W 220i and W 250i models, to remove the old asphalt starting at 11 p.m. Friday night.

At 7:15 the next morning—before the milling was even completed—two WIRTGEN SUPER 2100-3i VÖGELE pavers started to lay down the binder course of the motorway. Behind them, two WIRTGEN SUPER 1800-3i SprayJet machines applied the surface course using the “hot to hot” method and low-noise stone mastic asphalt (LOA). The SUPER 1800-3i units sprayed the bitumen emulsion and paved the asphalt surface course in one pass, which prevented any vehicles from driving over the fragile binder film and damaging it before it could be paved.

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Two VÖGELE MT 3000-2i Offset PowerFeeder material handlers kept the pavers supplied with mix. The MT 3000-2i’s pivoting conveyor lets it supply two pavers instead of just one. (Photo courtesy of Liebherr.)

Feeding & Finishing

JOHANN BUNTE used 130 trucks and two VÖGELE MT 3000-2i Offset PowerFeeder material handlers to keep the pavers supplied with mix. The MT 3000-2i has a pivoting conveyor which makes it able to supply up to two pavers working side by side.

The weekend project required about 17,600 tons (16,000 metric tons) of asphalt, including 13,200 t (12,000 mt) for the binder course and 4,400 t (4,000 mt) for the surface layer. The asphalt came from three mixing plants with a fourth one standing by.

“Paving had to be complete by 10:30 a.m. on Sunday to allow enough time for follow-up tasks such as the application of road markings,” WIRTGEN explains. “The route was set to be opened to traffic on Monday to enable commuter traffic in this densely-populated area to start the week normally.”

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Source: Wirtgen Group