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RAP Preheating System Provides Economical Solution
The Shelly Company, an asphalt producer with 47 plants located throughout Ohio, puts new RapSaver technology to the test in an effort to economically increase the use of reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP), while lowering emissions
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"We are hoping that RapSaver will boost the overall productive output capacity of the plant but also allow us to consistently run the highest RAP percentage that we can," he says. "It had been very wet during the start-up phase and we have really given the unit a tough run.
"We ran actual moisture samples on what we call our black sand' which is ½-inch and minus material," he continues. "On one day we were at 8 percent moisture, but it's generally been running 6.5, 6.6 and 6.7 percent due to these daily showers we've been getting."
Average summer moistures in central Ohio run around 3.5 percent to 4.5 percent.
"The steam was flying everywhere and the unit did a good job of keeping up, but that high amount of moisture was clear out of sight," says Protengeier. "We can't ask it to perform to capacity with this kind of moisture during heavy rainfalls, but we still wanted to see how well it did under extreme conditions while we had the opportunity."
Shelly plans to run the unit 10 to 14 hours per day in order to get a good baseline on the system.
"This is the first continuous high production installation of the unit, and we intend to stretch it out," Protengeier says. "If all goes well during the next two months, we're discussing plans to expand the system in 2007 so we can run 200 tons per hour through put capacity to serve more than one area plant.
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