By: STEPHANIE HARRIS ASSISTANT EDITOR
Making miles of asphalt
Asphalt Drum Mixers Inc. of Huntertown, Ind., manufactures a complete line of portable and stationary plants available in both counter-flow and parallel-flow designs, including the Milemaker Series (Circle 912). With its dual-drum counter-flow design, the Milemaker offers the highest level of dependability and performance for all day, every day operation at an affordable price.
The Milemaker’s separate drums allow for the best drying and mixing times available. Contractors are assured the most fuel-efficient drying while producing the highest quality of mix. The separation of the two distinctly different processes is the heart of the design. This allows for easy maintenance, incredibly low emissions and the versatility of introducing whatever additives the industry may specify in the future.
As the price of oil continues to rise, recycling is playing a larger role than ever before. The Milemaker can effectively run up to 50% recycle without loss of mix quality and still maintain a clean exhaust stack.
Portable plants
The Six Pack portable hot-mix asphalt (HMA) facility from Astec Inc., Chattanooga, Tenn., delivers the mix-versatility and high-production capabilities of the Double Barrel drying/mixing drum in an ultraportable design. Foundations and bulkheads are built in, and the entire plant and its control center are completely assembled, piped and wired at the factory to simplify the setup.
The Double Barrel Dryer/Mixer (Circle 913) is a combination aggregate-drying and HMA-mixing drum with high productivity and low operating costs. The sequential mixing process and long mixing chamber of the Double Barrel consistently produce strong, stable mixes. Standard production capacities range from 200 to 600 tons per hour in drums ranging in size from 34 to 50 ft long.
Astec’s Total Control 2000 (TC2000) plant control system is a powerful and flexible pc-based system. The TC2000 system centralizes control of all plant operations, features a flexible format for limitless expansion capabilities and is backed up by Astec’s control service team.
Also available from Astec is its relocatable HMA facility (Circle 914), designed for producers who want high-capacity production and storage with the option of moving the plant. Components are skid-mounted with built-in bulkheads for easy setup on level, paved sites without concrete foundations or additional structures.
The entire plant is pre-piped and pre-wired, and it can be up and running in about six weeks.
Astec’s relocatable plants also feature the Double Barrel combination drying and mixing drum, as well as Astec’s Phoenix Talon high-efficiency aggregate drying burner and New Generation HMA storage silos guaranteed to store mix for four days without loss of mix quality.
Asphalt amalgamation
Ecopath, a member of the Stratco Global family of companies, Scottsdale, Ariz., has attracted interest through its custom-designed plants for blending asphalt rubber as well as its cutting-edge technologies. Ecopath custom designs highly versatile and durable asphalt-rubber blending plants (Circle 915) that are compatible with any HMA plant.
Ecopath’s computer-controlled blending systems produce consistently high-quality, homogenous asphalt-rubber binder.
This can be done at a field-verified rate of up to 45 tons per hour. Flexible design options allow for the production of polymer-modified asphalt, dry-process rubberized asphalt and combination polymer- and rubber-modified asphalt.
