Skip to main content

Strabag on the edge with a Dynapac DF145CS paver from Atlas Copco

When asphalting the inside of the newly raised edge of a water dam, Austrian road construction company Strabag faced a challenge. The paver had to be operated at an angle of between 34-41 degrees with material fed into the hopper from a ledge just 2.8m wide on the edge of the dam. The Waldeck 2 kidney-shaped hydroelectric station is located on a mountaintop about 500m above sea level on Lake Eder in central Germany. The dam, owned by global energy group E.ON, has a perimeter of about 3km. An important pa
June 10, 2015 Read time: 3 mins
When asphalting the inside of the newly raised edge of a water dam, Austrian road construction company 945 Strabag faced a challenge. The paver had to be operated at an angle of between 34-41 degrees with material fed into the hopper from a ledge just 2.8m wide on the edge of the dam.

The Waldeck 2 kidney-shaped hydroelectric station is located on a mountaintop about 500m above sea level on Lake Eder in central Germany. The dam, owned by global energy group E.ON, has a perimeter of about 3km. An important part of the project involves raising the edge of the dam by 80cm to give a 10% increase in water storage.

Strabag made some simple steelwork, such as seat adjustments and walkway safety modifications for the operators on a 206 Dynapac DF145CS paver from 161 Atlas Copco. It was also necessary to modify the material hopper with an extra chamber to keep the material flow constant and avoid material accumulating at one end.

During the paving process, the Dynapac paver laying the asphalt was held in place by the counterweight of a second Dynapac paver that travelled in tandem along the ledge on top of the wall. The active paver was also attached to a hydraulic cylinder that pulled it in the right direction if it tended to stray due to the fluctuating material load in the modified hopper. An Atlas Copco XAS 67 portable compressor mounted on the counterweight paver was used to air-blow the work surface clean from dirt and stones in front of the paver.

The material trucks had to drive to the edge of the dam and reverse up to the working machines. To get the material into the hopper over the edge of the dam, a feeder was needed that could feed sideways yet be sufficiently narrow to operate on the dam’s edge. For this job the Dynapac MF2500CS mobile feeder had an add-on swingable conveyor, SwingApp.

With a basic width of 2.55m, the Dynapac feeder had no problem manoeuvring around the narrow dam edge and, thanks to the swingable conveyor, feeding to the side at an angle of 55 degrees was also no challenge. Although the MF2500CS has a feeding capacity of 4,000tonnes per hour - not necessary in this case - it is still slim enough for this kind of difficult job site condition. It was even possible to fully open the hopper wings.

“We paved 2.55m width at a speed of 1m per minute,” said Gebhard, “So the output was only around 200tonnes per day. When needed, we used the hydraulic screed assist to decrease the pressure of the screed on this bituminous material.”

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • High production asphalt pavers deliver performance
    February 28, 2012
    US style high production pavers are seeing key performance gains - Mike Woof reports. Exhaust emissions regulations and ever tougher safety requirements have pushed manufacturers to develop new and improved pavers aimed at the US market. The rivalry between manufacturers of these machines has also intensified. European manufacturers have developed their own US style pavers in recent years. BOMAG, Dynapac and Vögele have all designed machines using the benefit of their US engineering input in a bid to target
  • Innovation in asphalt paving solutions
    February 9, 2012
    This year has seen a wide array of innovative additions to the asphalt paving market - Mike Woof reports. The worldwide asphalt paving market is both competitive and complex, with an array of important players jostling for position. At the same time, paving controls have taken a great leap forward with the development of accurate 3D systems that can use a combination of laser and GPS positioning. Leica Geosystems, Topcon and Trimble have all introduced new packages for the asphalt paving sector and these
  • Milling and paving for a highway repair in Oklahoma
    April 5, 2017
    Milling and paving work has helped restore the road surface on an important stretch of highway in the US state of Oklahoma. US Highway 62 is a key route, running 3,597km from to Niagara Falls, New York, at the Canada–US border to the Mexico-US border at El Paso in Texas. It is the only east-west United States numbered highway that connects Canada with Mexico through the US, making it a key transport route. A 12km section of US 62 where it runs through Oklahoma recently benefited from a much-needed rebuild,
  • Infrastructure stays strong on the road to recovery
    July 1, 2021
    After more than a year of uncertainty, the road industry is coming back stronger than ever before thanks to new ways of working and increased investment – because building new infrastructure lays the foundation for a more resilient and economically robust world.