ForConstructionPros.com

Placing 254,000 tons of hot-mix asphalt over a 125-acre container/trucking terminal in 9.5 months would be a monumental accomplishment for any paving contractor, but doing so while maintaining a one percent slope for surface drainage is a challenge that even the best paving contractor would be hard pressed to deliver.

Yates, a division of Yates Construction, did just that this past year during the construction of the new Jacksonville Port Authority's Port TraPac Container Terminal at Dames Point in Jacksonville, FL.

Yates, which operates three asphalt plants and three paving crews out of Jackson, MS, accomplished the task using skilled paving crews and a Trimble PCS400 Paving Control System.

The terminal will be used by Tokyo-based Mitsui O.S.K. Lines and its terminal operating partner, TraPac, to load and unload container ships sailing to and from ports in Asia. The terminal has enough capacity to handle 1 million 20-foot containers annually

Initial earth work was completed by International Underground using a Trimble GCS900 Grade Control System configured with dual GPS and laser augmentation. Work by the grading subcontractor, who delivered a final grade that was within +/- 1/100th to slope specifications, proved significant in meeting the tight one percent drainage slope requirement and minimizing any asphalt production overages that would be required to correct any slope deviations when placing the three lifts of asphalt required to cap the terminal.