| Cover story Equiped
Equipped for Success
These are the main equipment deployed in road projects.
Pavers come in various types. These may be for asphalt or
wet mix macadam, and are either mechanical or hydrostatic
sensor based. Mechanical pavers are ideally suited for paving
asphalt in areas where the profile correction has been done,
such as narrow lanes, parking lots, walkways, gas stations
etc. Hydrostatic sensor based pavers are fitted with hydrostatic
drive and control, so as to enable the paver to lay a mat
to predetermined level and automatically maintain surface
smoothness irrespective of the undulations in the base.
A cross fall sensor also controls the slope in the transverse
direction and maintains the cross slope at the desired level.
As the steering and transmission are hydraulically controlled,
operating these machines is effortless.
Pneumatic tyre rollers find application in the final layer
of the road building process where the freshly paved and compacted
road surface needs to be sealed to avoid water seepage into
the layers beneath.
Crushing and screening machines are used to crush stone that
is often
used in road construction and maintenance. These come in mobile
and stationary versions.
Vibratory asphalt compactor is widely deployed for asphalt
compaction across India in
various road projects. This machine from Volvo with a high
frequency enables faster compaction and also effective compaction
of various thickness.
Road marking machines may be manual, semi-automatic or fully
automatic. These are used to apply hot thermoplastic paint
to mark a finished road. Certain road construction companies
use a thermoplastic paint heater as a complementary machine.
Bitumen sprayers are designed to uniformly spray an unvarying,
unbroken and prescribed quantity of hot bitumen or emulsions
on a specified area. The unit may be supplied as a module
that may be mounted on the customer’s truck chassis
or supplied complete with a standard truck chassis.
An in-built heating system with a high capacity burner heats
the bitumen to the required temperature.’
Wet mix plants are equipped to deliver precise mixes - cold
mix, cement treated aggregates, base course mixes, emulsion
treated mixes etc for road construction.
Asphalt mixes are machines that deliver precisely mixed quality
asphalt for use in paving roads.
The Sweep is used for cleaning the road prior to the bituminous/asphalt
coat.
Kerb laying machines are used to lay continuous kerbs, or
road edges. The equipment may be designed for a kerb of a
specific width, and comes replete with automatic sensors to
facilitate steering (by following a string line) and height
controls.
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