Founded in 1952, S.T. Wooten serves North Carolina in the asphalt materials and ready-mix concrete markets, as well as with heavy highway, design-build and commercial site work.
With over 900 employees, the company knows the value of investing in their people and facilities in order to remain competitive. For the past few years, much of the asphalt being produced at their Henderson, NC plant has gone to the Interstate 85 project. The project involves paving a 20-mile section of the interstate to improve road conditions from Vance County to the Virginia state line.
In order to boost production at this facility and keep up with mix demand, last winter S.T. Wooten installed a new drum, updated its dust collector and added a third silo to boost productivity.
“The updates have allowed us to save time and boost productivity at the plant, which helps us get product to project sites quickly and drive results on behalf of our customers,” Brian Gurganus, vice president of asphalt at S.T. Wooten says. “In fact, with the installation of our new drum alone, we can produce 33 percent more tons of asphalt per hour.”
Switching to a Unified Drum
The increase in production can be attributed to the installation of a Dillman UniDrum as opposed to the previous double drum system they were using.
“We’ve installed a new insulated drum to replace the double-drummed system at the plant,” Gurganus says. “The old drum used an elevator, which moved material between barrels during production. This would dry materials in the first drum before moving to the mixing drum.
“Our new drum is a “continuous mix” drum, which will handle the entire process by itself. This new drum will give us the same great results, while saving resources and making the process more efficient.”
With an extra-long drum, the Dillman UniDrum mixer is uniquely capable of producing quality hot mix at a high production rate of 300 tph with a high percentage of recycled content if the company chooses. The extra-long drum length maximizes mixing and drying times to reduce fuel consumption and provide superior mixing.
While the Henderson plant mainly produces hot mix, warm mix and specialty mixes for airports and other facilities, they are capable of utilizing RAP as well as RAS in their mix designs.
Keep the Dust Down
Asphalt plant mix facilities know that one way to be a good neighbor is to keep the dust down at their locations and that always means using a dust collection system. When S.T. Wooten made their plant upgrades, they decided it was time to update their dust collector system as well.
“One interesting aspect surrounding the recent plant upgrades has been the installation of a new inertial separator, which has helped make the dust collection and recycling process more efficient,” Gurganus says.
The upgrades changed the existing Cyclone to an Inertial Separator built by Astec. S.T. Wooten says the main reason for the conversion was to decrease duct work, thereby reducing the maintenance cost of the existing dust control system.
Additional Upgrades Boost Productivity
In addition to upgrading the drum and dust collector at the plant, S.T. Wooten also installed an additional silo.
“Like the other enhancements, this third silo was added to help us increase efficiency and productivity,” Gurganus says. “The additional silo has increased our storage by 50 percent at the plant, increasing the ability hold the asphalt until it’s ready to be moved to project sites. Adding the additional silo also means we will have a lot less waste on projects like I-85 where we have to change mixes a lot.”
The plant had two 200-ton silos and they added one additional 200-ton silo.
"This not only aids us with the additional storage capacity, but more importantly, helps us with the multiple mix changes that are necessary for this project on a daily basis," Gurganus says.
S.T. Wooten says these plant upgrades will help them support 650,000-ton paving projects like that of Interstate 85. The project was accelerated and over 300,000 tons were placed on the project last year.
