Nordic customer event highlights road building process
Over 400 visitors from Sweden, Norway and Denmark recently attended a joint Swecon (Volvo Construction Equipment’s Swedish dealer) and Sandvik Mining and Construction customer event and witnessed the entire road building process from drilling rock in a quarry prior to blasting through to compacting asphalt on a finished road. And all in a 30-minute show that preceded hands-on equipment demonstrations and test drives.
Held at Volvo Construction Equipment’s customer centre and demonstration area in Eskilstuna, Sweden, the ‘Rock to Road’ event highlighted the equipment and processes needed in a quarry for the blasting, movement and crushing of rock to make aggregate.
Beneath the quarry face, the full complement of Volvo road building equipment was put into action to demonstrate how aggregate is used to create a road.
The quarry face featured a remote-controlled Sandvik DX680R hydraulic, self-propelled, crawler-based surface drilling rig designed for efficient top hammer drilling in difficult terrain. Alongside this was a remote-controlled DC302R hydraulic, self-propelled drilling unit with four-wheel drive.
Supporting the drilling rigs were three Volvo crawler excavators - EC240CL, EC460CL, and EC700CL with operating weights of 26 tonnes, 48.3 tonnes and 71.7 tonnes respectively. All three hydraulic excavators demonstrated their agility, productivity, safety and efficiency in handling blasted rock in difficult conditions, made all the more challenging by driving rain throughout the first day.
The Volvo EC460CL excavator was used primarily to load a Sandvik UJ440E jaw crusher, which is capable of accepting rock up to 760mm and can crush at a rate of up to 600 tonnes/h. Powered by a Volvo 1241 TAD diesel engine, the 71-tonne UJ440E produced crushed rock, which was then transported for processing into various size aggregates using a Volvo L220F wheel loader equipped with Optishift for up to 15% improved fuel efficiency.
Final crushing and screening was demonstrated using Sandvik’s UH421 cone crusher featuring a three-deck screen and a UF320S semi-mobile screen capable of screening at a rate of 160 tonnes/h into four different sized products.
Volvo 21-tonne L120F and 26-tonne L150F wheel loaders were used to feed material into the hoppers of both units. Final product was then transported away from the crushing and screening plant using Volvo FM trucks.
While the initial phase of the demonstration highlighted the combined capabilities of Volvo Construction Equipment and Sandvik in the quarry and aggregates sector, the focus then switched to road building, an area in which Volvo provides a full service offering.
A 19.8-tonne Volvo G976 motor grader with a maximum blade down pressure of 9,776kg prepared the base, which was placed using an on-highway Volvo FMX articulated tipper. This was then compacted with a 12.8-tonne Volvo SD130D single-drum soil compactor featuring a drum width of 2.1m, a vibration frequency of 30.8-33.8Hz and amplitude of 1.17-1.9mm.
Once the base was prepared, Volvo’s top-of-the-range ABG6870 wheeled paver, with a maximum paving width of 9m, was used to place asphalt at up to 40m/min. The paver was immediately followed by a DD95 double-drum compactor that has a drum width of 1.68m. With a vibration frequency of 40-50Hz and amplitude of 67-82mm, the unit was also equipped with a CS750 chip spreader to enhance the surface finish.
Christer Söderberg, Swecon’s sales and marketing manager, concluded: ‘Machines are becoming increasingly similar, so it’s crucial that we offer customers the right product as well as security and profitability through providing a reliable and stable support service. The ‘Rock to Road’ event enabled us to demonstrate both the capabilities of our equipment and the support that contractors can expect.’
