Cold Recycling Train Featuring New Wirtgen W 380 CR Rehabilitates Road Surface, Saving 11 Weeks Of Repair Time

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The cold recycling train’s milling, processing, paving, and compacting featured machines from the Wirtgen Group. (Photo courtesy of Wirtgen Group.)

When the town of Monsanto in Portugal was planning a structural rehabilitation of rural road ER 361, the public authority estimated around 12 weeks of repair work. Contracting company Pragosa was able to shorten the duration of the project to just four days (and just 20 hours of construction time) using cold in-place recycling. This construction method recycles the existing road material while adding lime and foamed bitumen binding agents to create a new road bed. Pavers and rollers follow, in what’s called a “cold recycling train,” to seal and stabilize the surface and produce a lane perfectly matching the line and level of the existing road. Pragosa’s cold recycling train featured a selection of Wirtgen Group machines, including the Wirtgen W 380 CR (cold recycler), a VÖGELE Super 1900-3i paver, and several HAMM rollers.

Milling Just 6.3 Inches Deep

The initial project plan called for excavating both lanes to a depth of 21.2 inches (54 centimeters). Over the 1.7 miles (2.7 kilometers) of broken road, this conventional method of construction would require transporting away 9,810 cubic yards (7,500 cubic meters) of material, as well as bringing in a similar amount of new road materials.

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Here you can see the Wirtgen W 380 CR loading the recycled pavement into the VÖGELE Super 1900-3i. (Photo courtesy of Wirtgen Group.)

“The working depth of the cold recycler was set to 16 cm in order to produce a BSM layer with sufficient bearing capacity,” says Wirtgen recycling expert Mike Marshall. The W 380 CR milled the damaged asphalt surface layer and produced around 353 tons (320 metric tons) per hour of BSM (bitumen-stabilized material). The high-powered W 380 CR was able to do all this while advancing at 16.4 ft (5 m) per minute.

Paving & Compaction

VÖGELE’s SUPER 1900-3i paver followed the W 380 CR, using the recycler’s flexible conveyor to load the BSM directly into the paver’s hopper. The SUPER 1900-3i boasts a maximum capacity of 992 t (900 mt) per hour, and with a relatively light workload of 353 t per hour, the machine was able to operate in its EcoPlus mode to save fuel. The SUPER 1900-3i’s NIVELTRONIC Plus technology also automated the grade and slope control, paving the new road to exact line and level. Three HAMM road rollers made up the end of the cold recycling train. HAMM’s HD 110i tandem roller sealed and stabilised the paved layer, and final compaction was handled by two GRW 18 pneumatic tire rollers. Wirtgen says that after a few passes from the pneumatic compactors, the road was opened to traffic, where even a fully loaded forklift truck didn’t damage the surface of the recycled roadway.

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The cold recycling train worked through ER 361 at a rate of 16.4 feet per minute. (Photo courtesy of Wirtgen Group.)

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Source: Wirtgen Group