29
november 2013
international
construction
ROAD BUILDING
Technological advantages
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Many offer the further advantage that they can cut out unnecessary
tasks and improve efficiency in other ways for the contractor.
For example, when the New York State Thruway Authority
wanted to experiment with unbonded concrete overlays it chose
a 5 mile (8 km), four-lane section of Interstate 90 near Hamburg
as the test section. Surianello General Concrete based in Buffalo,
New York, US won the bid to pave the 9" (229 mm) thick
concrete overlay.
The age and the design of the original roadway posed a challenge
from the start. It was built in the 1950s and didn’t conform to
current geometry requirements. The road’s overlay also meant
there would be challenges in setting up a traditional stringline.
The answer to both issues was a GOMACO four-track GHP-
2800 paver equipped with a new independent IDBI dowel bar
inserter and a Leica Geosystems 3D stringless guidance system
to control the machine. As both systems were new to Surianello,
the company took part in training and a test pour at their
headquarters, aided by members of GOMACO’s 3D team, service
department, and an instructor from GOMACO University.
“We did a 150 foot (45.7 m) test pour at our facilities in Buffalo
where we trained our operators on the dowel bar inserter and the
stringless,” said company president Frank Surianello. “The hands-
on experience allowed us to get our ducks in a row so when we
Being competitive in road construction is becoming more reliant on using technology to monitor
work in real time and automatically control equipment.
Chris Sleight
reports.
Technological
advantages
T
here was a time when building a road involved laying
material, compacting it and hoping that at the end of the
day it met the client’s specifications.
The problem with that approach is the uncertainty for the
contractor throughout the project. Better to know as you go along
whether the road is going to pass muster, and better still to be able
to document this as you go.
This is something that many types of road building equipment
can deliver, thanks to various on-board and add-on technologies.
Surianello General Concrete
used Leica 3D machine
control and GOMACO’s own
dowel bar inserter system
and smoothness indicator
to help it pave at an
average rate of 792 m per
day with its GOMACO four-
track GHP-2800 in New
York state.
Contractor McAninch used a Cat soil compactor fitted with
Machine Drive Power (MDP) on a project in Iowa to help
identify problem areas and verify that targets had been met in
two to three passes, instead of the usual eight.
