KM International’s T2 Asphalt Recycler

Getting the right amount of mix to a pavement maintenance job site is half the battle out there. You want to have the mix sufficiently hot, and you’d like to take advantage of cost savings wherever possible. The team from KM International, North Branch, Michigan, has developed the KM T2 Asphalt Recycler to make the right amount of recycle mix for the job at hand. Here’s how it works.

The crew can haul the T2 to the jobsite via its trailer, which is 23 feet, 10 inches long by 8 feet wide, or house the T2 at the asphalt yard to load a hot box to deliver mix to the jobsite.

A front-end loader delivers chunks of recycled asphalt pavement (RAP) up to 12 inches in size, or RAP millings, into the T2’s loading chute, which is 26 by 94 inches wide at a height of 7 feet, 6 inches.

After it’s loaded, the drum rotates at approximately 9 rotations per minute (rpm), and breaks down the material with seven 3/16-inch steel agitators. A 700,000 BTU capacity burner runs on No. 1 or No. 2 diesel, B-5 bio-diesel or kerosene to heat and dry the material.

Workers add to the drum two 3.5-pound bags of asphalt cement (AC) to act as a binding agent. The drum continues to mix the materials at a temperature of up to 350oF, allowing the AC to evenly encapsulate the aggregate at a rate of up to 4 tons per hour.

The T2 then tilts hydraulically to offload the finished mix from a chute into a waiting loader bucket or directly onto the pavement to be repaired.