Skip to main content

Dynapac planer improves racing line

A Dynapac PL350T cold planer helped carry out critical demarcation work on the roads used for the famous Isle of Man's TT motorcycle races. It was used to remove the road markings on the isle in the Irish Sea in readiness for the races. The Dynapac machine is equipped with a special micro milling drum which contains 117 bits, compared to the standard 38, spaced at intervals of 3mm as opposed to the conventional 12mm. In addition, to avoid a sharp edge at the sides of the demarcation area, the drum is slight
July 30, 2012 Read time: 2 mins
A 206 Dynapac PL350T cold planer helped carry out critical demarcation work on the roads used for the famous Isle of Man's TT motorcycle races. It was used to remove the road markings on the isle in the Irish Sea

in readiness for the races. The Dynapac machine is equipped with a special micro milling drum which contains 117 bits, compared to the standard 38, spaced at intervals of 3mm as opposed to the conventional 12mm.

In addition, to avoid a sharp edge at the sides of the demarcation area, the drum is slightly offset by 1 or 2mm at the edges, although very flat across its 300mm surface. This is essential to avoid any danger to the high-speed bikes.

The planer's additional 600kg of ballast on top of the cutter housing ensures the minimum vibration during milling operations and a much smoother and uniform result.

According to the isle's Department of Transport (DOT) maintenance team, other drums with smaller diameters cannot use the standard bit system, which means the Dynapac bits last approximately four times longer than competing drums as they have to use mini-bits.

The machine offers a huge increase in productivity over the previous and labour-intensive method used for line removal with standard blasting equipment.

The TT fortnight attracts around 40,000 visitors/year, takes months to plan, not least by the island's DOT, both in securing the route for bikes, which hit speeds of over 300km/h, and in ensuring the safety of both riders and spectators. House-fronts, walls, lamp-posts and safety barriers are all protected with air fencing and roundabouts are removed along the highly demanding 60km route.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • BOMAG is offering a productive new recycling machine
    March 15, 2016
    BOMAG is offering two new recycling machines to meet the needs of customers. The RS500 has innovative features including a cab that can be raised to improve operator visibility while working, and lowered for transport from site to site. Another important feature of the RS500 recycler is its ability to offset the cutter drum by 300mm to either side. This allows the machine to work close to an edge or kerb and also means that there is no need to turn around on sites with restricted space. The machine is equip
  • Wirtgen Group machines delivering new runway for German airbase
    October 26, 2016
    Machines from the Wirtgen Group are carrying out an important reconstruction job for the surface course at Büchel Air Base. Road machinery from Hamm, Vögele and Wirtgen as well as asphalt plants from Benninghoven have been carrying out the work, delivering a new runway within a tight timeframe. To achieve this, the work had to be planned well in advance, with the contractors organising the logistics and their personnel accordingly.
  • Motorcycle-Guardrail Crashes: How can the risk of severe injury and fatality be reduced?
    July 23, 2012
    The problem: motorcyclist fatalities can occur from a variety of accidents. But in the United States in 2005, motorcyclists comprised 42% of fatalities due to guardrail collisions, whereas only 3% of vehicles on the roads were motorcycles (Gabler, 2007). More motorcyclists were killed in guardrail collisions than passengers of any other vehicle type in 2005 (Gabler, 2007). Guardrails cannot simply be removed to protect motorcyclists. However, improvements need to be made in several areas in order to keep mo
  • Cifa equipment is pressed into service for Venice’s Mose project
    November 25, 2015
    The Mose project is a vast intervention plan by Italy’s Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport to protect Venice from flooding. It also has presented Cifa and its partners a big challenge for pumping concrete over a long distance. The work, being carried out by the Venezia Nuova Consortium, consisting of national and local construction and engineering companies, includes four mobile barriers consisting of 78 gates at the lagoon’s inlets. Most of the time the barriers will be resting on the seabed and not