If you’re using live-bottom trucks to deliver mix to your project, you’re probably doing so for a number of reasons including minimizing segregation. Here’s a tip to keep cold-material segregation from creeping into the paving operation and leaving ugly drag marks in your mat.
Establish a rule that live-bottom trailers are loaded with the three-drop method at the plant. Make sure the driver and plant operator get the timing right and line up properly under the silo gates for each of the three drops.
Here’s why you can’t get away with two huge drops in a 25- or 30-ton live-bottom trailer.
That trailer has three support bars along the top where piled material builds up and cools. The cold residue might not break off and find its way into your hopper on the first trip to the job site, but you can bet it’ll get knocked into the mix on subsequent trips. Those chunks represent material and temperature segregation that drag lines down your new mat.
By loading in the three-drop method, your plant operator can load between the frame supports and can keep each pile lower than the bars, thus keeping mix from building up on top of them.
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