When it comes to paving roads or laying down asphalt or concrete, there are a lot of moving parts, and many pieces of equipment are necessary to get the job done.
Read More (About Asphalt, Paving & Concrete Equipment)When it comes to paving roads or laying down asphalt or concrete, there are a lot of moving parts, and many pieces of equipment are necessary to get the job done. Each one plays a different but pivotal role in preparing the earth for paving, compacting the soil, supplying or laying down concrete or asphalt, smoothing and grading it, compacting it, and possibly treating it to control its drying rate at the end of the process.
There are wheeled and tracked pavers, asphalt plants, finishers, road wideners, texture/curing machines, and asphalt tank trailers; vibratory screeds and tamper bar screeds; roller compactors, handheld compactors, plate compactors, paving vibrators, and tandem vibratory rollers; concrete blowers, buckets, and concrete saws; concrete pump trucks, material transfer vehicles/MTVs, conveyors, and placer/spreaders; milling machines, cold planers, soil stabilizers, and road recyclers/reclaimers; sweepers and brooms; cement mixer trucks, dump trucks, force feed loaders, and bottom and end dump trailers; and more.
Today’s new asphalt and paving equipment comes with the latest emissions controls on their engines. At this writing, they comply with Tier 4 Final standards in the U.S. and Stage V standards in the EU. Many machines feature adaptive engine speed systems that automatically adjust engine speed to the load to conserve fuel and reduce emissions. Other types of automatic modes can automatically adjust the travel or drum speed to the conditions of the job.
High-tech grade control systems can make it easier to lay down the correct amount of material with the proper grade. This can save time and fuel, both of which reduce operating costs. For example, Wirtgen’s AutoPilot 2.0 3D control system can create new offset and inset profile digital data models right on the jobsite. This approach can save considerable time and expense over the traditional survey-and-stringline method of creating a data model, which the system also supports.
Modern roadbuilding equipment supports wireless telemetry, which can keep fleet operators and dealers updated on machine location, status, fuel consumption, and more. Some systems can also provide crucial documentation, such as the amount of material used or the amount of compaction achieved on a particular bridge or road. Meanwhile, Caterpillar and Trimble’s eRoutes app takes advantage of location technology to let contractors know when material hauling trucks will arrive at the plant or jobsite.
Finally, features such as 360-degree camera systems have improved visibility and safety on the job.
Major players in the paver and concrete equipment market include Blaw-Knox, Bomag, Caterpillar, GOMACO, LeeBoy, RoadTec, Vögele, and Wirtgen, just to name a few. You will typically find thousands of equipment listings on PavingEquipment.com.
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