To Prevent Dips and Bumps in the Mat, Keep the Paver Going

Last week, we talked about matching the rolling train’s “speed” to the paver’s speed to the haul truck delivery times. That’s a tough dance to choreograph, but you can do it if you’ve planned everything out nicely and trained your crew to make it happen. One of the steps you want to remember in this “dance” is to keep moving.

You don’t want to stop the paver, if you can help it. Once the haul trucks hit a snag and the hopper runs low, you run the risk of starving the endgates or slowing down. Either of those options is less than ideal but careful planning for the day’s paving should prevent you from stopping the paver on a long pull. Teach your crew that once the paver stops, the heavy screed settles into the hot mat it was in the process of placing. This almost imperceptible settling compacts the material it’s sitting on, too. Once the haul trucks reappear and the crew’s ready to pave forward again, you have a dip in the mat where the screed plate sat. Your roller operator might not be able to “feel” it, but you can bet the state inspector’s instrumentation will pick up on it.

To keep the paver moving, you want to keep the haul trucks arriving in their round robin pattern. You may elect to use a hopper insert to increase the volume the paver can work with. You may elect to have a material transfer vehicle in front of the paver to increase capacity (and for a lot of other reasons) as well. Whatever “good planning” looks like for your crew, keeping the paver moving at a slow and steady speed so it doesn’t stop in between truck deliveries is key.

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