On an Advanced Road

Driven by tight project completion schedules and public-private partnership projects, putting in place precise quality stipulations, road construction equipment manufacturers are placing products with innovative attributes, P. P. Basistha & S. A. Faridi, make a journey to learn about the array of product advancements being arried out by the manufacturers.

Extensive technological modifications are being carried out by road construction equipment manufacturers in their product line category. Advancements are being carried out on two pronged basis. First to deliver quality output through the products, while on the other, products are being made versatile to suit multi various road construction application requirements.

In tune with the same, manufacturing products to deliver quality output has been a priority for Greaves Cotton Limited. As per Mr. Sunil Manoharan, General Manager, Marketing, Road Construction Equipment for Greaves, “large scale built operate transfer (BoT) projects are making it much essential for equipment manufacturers to make products to deliver quality output.” He elaborates, “in a BoT project the concerned construction company has to build and maintain the project. As a reason for this, the company requires equipment which can deliver output and cut down on maintenance costs.”

In accordance with the requirement, Greaves compaction machinery comes with a key feature consisting, “compaction measuring instrument.” The instrument enables the operator to judge the level of compaction being made and in turn allows him make the compaction accurate as per requirement. As per the functionality of the compaction measuring instrument goes, sensors are fitted on the drums of the compactors. This passes on the signal to the circuit box placed at the operator’s cabin which in turn flashes the status quo of the compaction work being carried out on to the operator’s screen. The key feature, according to Mr. Manoharan, allows the construction company to save on operating time and fuel consumption.

Greaves compactors are developed in technical collaboration with Bomag of Germany. Greaves manufactures both single drum vibratory rollers and tandem vibratory rollers. The tandem vibratory rollers have essential attributes consisting, drum–offset (crab steering) to both sides, so as to prevent damages to road kerbs. The equipment also has features involving, hydrostatically driven pressurized water sprinkler for lower maintenance, automatic vibration stop and emergency gravity fed water sprinkler system among other features.

Pavers and Accuracy

Developing products to link it with quality and accuracy, the element prime in road construction, has been a continuous emphasis at Dynapac. The company has been trying to establish the fact through its road construction equipment, pertaining to pavers, rollers and planers on a sustainable basis. As per Mr. Rajiv Sharma, National Sales Manager, Dynapac Compaction & Paving Equipment India Pvt Ltd,” the advanced operational features of our machines makes the machines costlier as compared to other contemporary products.”

On the advanced features, he highlights, “Dynapac pavers come with Deutz engines. This makes the machines fuel efficient. The machines have performance related hydraulics and sensors.” Mr. Sharma points out, the pivotal feature of Dynapac’s pavers are its screed, which has been designed and developed by Dynapac itself. The advanced designed screed in the pavers enables uniform spread of the asphalt material during construction and also allows making the grade and sloping smooth of the road and also in concurrence making the surface finish smooth.

While Dynapac’s rollers also claim to be fuel efficient based on its Cummins engines. The rollers come in with “compaction measuring systems” as a key feature to derive accuracy as desired in the project work.

Dynapac produces both small, medium and high capacity planers. While its pavers category consists of both wheeled and tracked pavers. The compactors range consists of single drum soil compactors, tandem asphalt rollers, combi rollers and static rollers.

Sustained product improvisation for quality output has been a prime emphasis for Gujarat Apollo as well.

As per, Mr. Asit Patel, Managing Director, Gujarat Apollo, “we have incorporated electronic controls in our asphalt plants. This has been coupled with hydraulic and safety instruments and other advanced components for more precise and consistent quality output.” He informs, Gujarat Apollo’s asphalt plants are equipped with Siemens hardware. Mr. Patel says, improvisation has been made in the pavers through putting in advanced components and control systems. Gujarat Apollo imports technology to make the products at par with global standards.

Gujarat Apollo known as solution provider for road contractors, has a wide range of products to offer that consist of asphalt plants, pavers, kerb pavers, crushing & screening machine, compaction equipment, road marking machine, wet mix plant, allied equipment, bitumen sprayer, and so on.

Product advancements have been carried out by manufacturers, providing equipment for concrete road construction applications. Among there Gujarat based Unisteel Engineering Works has a product lines consists of concrete pavers for roads and airports and also concrete pavers for canal and reservoir construction.

According to Mr. Bipin Surelia, Managing Director, Unisteel, the company’s “Unisteel RCP 750 paver has a unique feature comprising, hydraulic needle vibrator. The needle vibrator is attached to the machine. This allows the machine to check building up of air bubble in the concrete and in turn ensures homogeneity in the concrete slab. As per Mr. Surelia, homogeneity of the concrete is of prime importance in airport taxiway construction and canal construction.

Additional feature of the RCP 750 is toeing arrangement in place. With this facility, the bolts in the machine can be fixed and it can be made ready for toeing. The equipment has special under carriage, consisting of a spreader augar for undertaking concrete operation from level to level.

Innovative features also come in at Mulquip’s fixed form paver. The fixed form paver is used for concrete road paving, airport runways, elevated decks, suspended slabs, tilt up panels, post tension slabs, bridges indoor stadiums and industrial floorings. As per Mr. Narinder. Jit. Singh, Managing Director, Multiquip Construction Equipment Private Ltd.,“ the fixed form pavers are equipped with state-ofthe- art technology for achieving accurate level, quality finish and speedy completion of projects.” He highlights, “the super screed of the paver helps in speedy completion, reduced manpower deployment and ensures accurate desired finish.”

The Multiquip fixed form paver is expandable from 14ft to 52 ft for numerous work size and according to the company can work on either fixed forms or external light tube system or completed adjacent panels or combinations. It has independent ride-on-control of each drive and powered with a hydrostatic system for two way multiple pass movements and chamber adjustments. This makes the machine, convenient easy to operate steer and transport.

On additional features, of the pavers Mr. Singh mentions, that the equipment has instant forward-and reverse-screeding action, removable hydraulic power pack, optional hydraulic pressure washer to simplify clean up. The equipment have a standard size of 4 ft (for 3.9 mtr panel) can beupgraded on site upto 52 ft (15.2) mtr panel application.

The Multiquip fixed form pavers are working on several projects consisting of airport projects, city roads, container terminals, median roads and industrial floorings in the country.