Skip to main content

Cold winters ravage roads requiring repairs

Detroit is one of the three worst cities in the US for poor weather, along with Chicago and Toledo For Metro Detroit the winter of 2013-14 was the second snowiest season on record, bested only by the winter of 1880-1881. This had a terrible effect on the city’s roads and in the suburb of Southfield, officials assessed the poor state of the asphalt and concrete streets and realised the conventional patch and fill programme would not be sufficient.Instead the contract was modified to cover mill and resurfacin
January 7, 2015 Read time: 3 mins
Contractor Allied Construction has used its new RP195e paver to help repair winter damaged roads in a Detroit suburb

Detroit is one of the three worst cities in the US for poor weather, along with Chicago and Toledo

For Metro Detroit the winter of 2013-14 was the second snowiest season on record, bested only by the winter of 1880-1881. This had a terrible effect on the city’s roads and in the suburb of Southfield, officials assessed the poor state of the asphalt and concrete streets and realised the conventional patch and fill programme would not be sufficient.Instead the contract was modified to cover mill and resurfacing the numerous asphalt and concrete roads throughout the city. Local contractor Allied Construction was brought in to carry out the work within a short timescale.

The contractor was given a list of project streets at the beginning of the month with the mandate to keep traffic flowing and to minimise the time at each location. As the company completed the first projects on budget and within the 15-day completion windows provided, the authorities extended the contract and added new sites to the repair/reconstruction list. When winter returns and the firm has completed its work, the company will have worked on an approximate total of 60-plus major patches and 10 street location sites. The majority of the roads are residential streets, although there are a number of collector roads as well. The work involved milling the damaged area to a depth of 51-76mm and then adding a new 76mm layer of asphalt.

The firm used its 1252 Roadtec RX-700e half-lane cold planer to mill the road surfaces, followed by its new Roadtec RP-195e rubber-track paver for all the road paving. The 3m class machine was equipped with a Carlson ER-R2-10 rear mount screed. This features heating elements in direct contact with the upper surface of the main screed plate and is designed to deliver even, controllable heat. With the thicker mats the firm has been placing on the Southfield streets, the Carlson screed, with vibration turned up, helped achieve the density requirements.

The contractor said that the machine was able to deliver a good mat smoothness while the machine’s sophisticated Guardian Telematics System also helped ensure any downtime was minimised. For the City of Southfield street repair/rehab project, Allied Construction used a range of materials from Marshall Mixes to Low Volume Superpave (LVSP), depending on the road traffic.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Surface quality a key trend in asphalt paving
    March 7, 2012
    Improved surface quality and improved machine design are key trends in the asphalt paving sector, Mike Woof reports There is a big difference in asphalt paving techniques in North America and Europe. In North America, the need to construct long stretches of highway quickly resulted in wide pavers offering high throughput capacity, with compaction equipment then being used to achieve the required density of the various courses. In Europe's highway construction projects, distances tend to be shorter and contr
  • Cold recycling in Monsanto, Portugal
    November 24, 2021
    A key machine used for the cold recycling train was the new Wirtgen W 380 CR, which made its debut for Pragosa on this construction site.
  • Airport's high demands on asphalt and concrete techniques
    July 11, 2012
    Airport runway, taxiway and parking areas make high demands on paving requirements, both with concrete and asphalt techniques. Mike Woof reports. High quality surface finishes are required in airport environments for runways, taxiways and aircraft parking areas. Because of the speed at which aircraft take off and land and the massive forces exerted due to the weight of the aircraft, particularly during landing, runway structures need to be incredibly strong. The surfaces also have to be constructed to very
  • Developments in asphalt paving machines increases competition
    April 10, 2012
    With the asphalt paving segment split broadly into two methods, American or European,. it is no surprise that manufacturers. from these countries have dominated the market for some years. An interesting development in recent times has been seen with various European firms developing asphalt pavers to suit North American needs, including BOMAG, Dynapac and Vögele. Caterpillar and Volvo by comparison both offer both European and US-style pavers, with separate model ranges that have been developed over many ye