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

  • Dynapac’s new pavers rise to emission challenge
    April 17, 2012
    Dynapac’s innovative new six-strong tracked asphalt paver range has been engineered to meet future exhaust emission regulations. The SD2500CS, SD2550C and SD2550CS are powered by Cummins QSB 6.7 water-cooled turbo-diesel engines and meet the Tier 4 interim / Stage IIIB regulations.
  • Novel paver screed design from Sumitomo as company plans global expansion
    April 8, 2025

    Sumitomo is aiming to boost its share of the global market for asphalt pavers. The company is market leader in Japan and plans to develop sales around the globe, according to president & CEO, Isamu Mitsuhashi and regional manager road machinery, Weichao Shi.  

    The company has undergone an organisational change to expand its presence in the global paver business. At the moment the firm is only exporting its HA60 model to Europe but believes this model offers performance benefits over competing machines.

  • Building the diamond road in Lesotho
    April 6, 2016
    A job site in the Southern African nation of Lesotho represents one of the most extreme and challenging projects to some key Italian firms of the last 10 years. The project was certainly different from the norm It involves building a road in the Lesotho Mountains, some 200km from the capital Maseru, with the work being carried out by the Cooperative of Building and Cement workers from Ravenna (CMC). CMC, which has ranked among Marini's clients for many years now, is involved in the construction of a
  • An array of crushing and screening innovations was presented at the recent INTERMAT 2012 exhibition
    July 19, 2012
    The crushing and screening phase is a crucial component in aggregate production and new development will help optimise performance - Mike Woof reports Crushing and screening is a key part of the quarrying cycle and has a huge impact on overall operating performance. Optimising operations will cut running costs, reduce materials wastage and also provide a more consistent product quality, boosting cost-effectiveness dramatically. An array of innovations were revealed to the market at the recent INTERMAT 2012