Two miles of road, three lanes, two passing places and two bridges: contractor Matthäi relied on machine technology from VÖGELE for placing the surface course on the new stretch of the B 442 Federal road near Eimbeckhausen in Lower Saxony, Germany.
“Eimbeckhausen can relax!” said Lower Saxony’s Minister of Transport and Traffic Jörg Bode as he officially opened Eimbeckhausen’s new bypass road to traffic. After two years of construction, the harassed residents of Eimbeckhausen were finally rid of the barrage of traffic that had rushed through their small village near Hanover on the B 442 Federal road for decades. Toward the end, almost 14,000 vehicles had been counted per day, 15 – 19 percent of which were HGVs. All these vehicles are now diverted along the two mile stretch of new trunk road to the south of the village. On some sections, the road even includes an additional third lane to make overtaking easier. Two passing lanes were also built and two bridge decks paved with asphalt.
Contractor Matthäi opts for VÖGELE
A consortium consisting of Matthäi Bauunternehmen GmbH & Co. KG. Langenhagen and Johann Bunte Bauunternehmung GmbH & Co. KG, Braunschweig branch, was awarded the contract for the road works. In order to withstand the high stresses imposed by the enormous volume of traffic in the long term, the layer structure, the joints as well as grade and slope control had to be absolutely perfect on all stretches of the new road.
Wearing course paved 'hot to hot'
The paving teams first placed a 4 inches thick base course, followed by a 3.5 inch asphalt binder course of asphaltic concrete. For the surfacing of stone matrix asphalt (SMA), 1 inch thick, the men headed by Site Manager Jörg Gattkowski worked with two and, on some sections, even three VÖGELE machines paving “hot to hot”. This method not only speeds up the entire paving process, but also significantly improves the quality of the wearing course, ensuring perfect joints and thus considerably enhancing the road’s durability.
Extending screeds with bolt-on extensions
Most of the asphalt work was undertaken by a SUPER 1900-2 and a SUPER 1800-2. These two versatile, high-performance tracked pavers can be used for a large variety of jobs – motorways, country roads, squares and roundabouts – making them eminently suitable to meet all the challenges of this particular job site. In Eimbeckhausen, both machines came with an AB 500 Extending Screed in TP1 version. Bolt-on extensions were fitted for a maximum pave width of 21 feet. As a result, asphalt for the wearing course could be paved on the 37 feet wide roadway and the 41 foot wide bridge decks without a need for conversion. On some stretches, a third machine came into play: a wheeled SUPER 1303-2 combined with an AB 340 Extending Screed in TV version was used for surfacing the passing places.
Big MultiPlex Ski for grade and slope control
To ensure precise grade and slope control when paving wearing course – another crucial requirement for a top-quality road – the SUPER 1800-2 and SUPER 1900-2 were fitted with a Big MultiPlex Ski. The ski’s sonic sensors scanned the new binder course and transmitted their picked-up values to NIVELTRONIC Plus, the System for Automated Grade and Slope Control. The admitted tolerance for the specified surface accuracy was 4 millimeters in a longitudinal direction over a length of 13 feet. Summing up, Site Manager Gattkowski could not have been more positive: “Layer thickness, compaction and bond of layers – everything was perfect. We are totally satisfied with the finished pavement.”
