Replacement Drums Address Productivity, Quality Issues

At the Peoria facility, Advanced installed:

• 9-foot 6-inch-diameter by 54-foot-long Dillman Unified Counterflow Portable Drum Mixer powered by four 50-hp motors with heavy-duty Simitumo gearboxes
• Combustion flights fabricated with 3/8-inch AR plate steel with veiling flights constructed of ¼-inch AR plate steel
• 30-inch by 26-foot indexing slinger conveyor
• The mixer drum is fired by a Hauck StarJet 580 extended oil-only burner, with no ignition tile, flame-shaping while firing, and a Model TBA36-100 blower with 100-hp drive system

Happy with performance
With two years of production experience running the new drum mixers at both the Hennepin stationary plant and the Peoria portable plant, Gustafson is happy with how the Dillman drums have performed. "We didn't run a lot of mix through the Hennepin facility in 2006, but that was only because we didn't have a lot of work scheduled near that plant," Gustafson says. "But we know it's designed and equipped to handle our high production needs in the future.

"As for our Peoria operation, the plant has really performed well over the past two seasons," he continues. "We produced a lot of tonnage for the I-74 project and we were very happy with the quality of mix we produced. We had to meet some pretty demanding production schedules on that project (I-74) and the drum really held up well and performed to our expectations."

While Advanced made sure all upgrades to the Peoria facility were done to maintain its portability aspect, Gustafson says continued work on the I-74 project as well as other major infrastructure projects will likely keep the plant in Peoria for the foreseeable future.

"With the upgrades we made, this plant has the productivity of a stationary and it's proven that it can meet the demands of a large project," Gustafson says. "But it's also nice to know that we can move it to another location to serve the high-production needs of a future project."