Ecology – Safety – Reduction

By Andreas Biedermann

The Ammann Group

Ammann is a leading supplier of machines, systems and services to the construction industry with core expertise in asphalt and road building worldwide. Since 141 years Ammann stands for reliability as well as for ecology, safety and reduction. Driven by an entrepreneurial spirit, the family-owned business, founded in Switzerland, is now in the fifth generation. More than 3,300 Ammann asphalt mixing plants have proved their value in tough operation. Durable technology provides reliability supported by easy to operate, modern control systems. A full range of soil compaction machines from rammers to heavy-weight tandem rollers are available for any application.

Reducing CO₂ Emission in the Asphalt Road Construction

Between 1958 and 2000, the CO₂ concentration in the atmosphere increased from 320 to 386 ppm (parts per million) resulting in a global temperature increase of 0.7°C. Every part of industry and society is asked to contribute to reach the worldwide target to produce less CO₂.

Roads are the backbone of a flourishing economies. Thanks to new technologies, they can be built even more environment-friendly by using less energy, emitting less CO₂, as well as using higher rates of reclaimed asphalt and lower operating temperatures.

Reduction of CO₂ emission and production costs

Ammann provides proven solutions to the construction industry for both of these new challenges.

Recycling Reclaimed Asphalt from Old Roads

Nowadays, there is still a lot of asphalt being land-filled or used in low-performance applications. To save resources, the available reclaimed asphalt which consists of high-quality bitumen and already prepared aggregates should be reused in high-performance applications to build new, durable roads. More than 20 years ago, Ammann has recognized the relevance of asphalt recycling and pioneered the parallel drum technology which allows the asphalt industry to produce high quality asphalt recycling. In 2008, Ammann continued its innovation path with the first counter-flow recycling drum, which allows the asphalt industry to use as much as 100% reclaimed asphalt.

Low Temperature Asphalt

Lowering the maximum temperature of the asphalt during production and mixing allows a reduction of fuel consumption at the mixing plants, since less energy is needed to heat up the minerals and the bitumen. The second advantage is the significant decrease of asphalt smoke that construction workers are exposed to.

There are different methods for the production of low temperature asphalt like using additives, foaming, special binders or a combination thereof. Ammann provides solutions which range from special modules in the plant control system to additional plant components. The key to success for any of these low temperature methods lies in an intensive mixing technology, whereby the mixing temperature can be lowered by at least 20°C and up to 70°C.

Intelligent Compaction

Another trend to reduce production costs is the efficiency of the asphalt-laying and compaction process. With ACE - Ammann Compaction Expert - Ammann is one of the main supporters to develop and market these technologies in the global markets.

The compaction of the asphalt layer and the underlying soil influences the quality and the life-time of a road substantially. To reach a good compaction, an operator of a conventional roller compactor has to optimize a huge number of factors like degree of compaction, uniformity of compaction, influence of weather, asphalt temperature, topology and last but not least the movement of the surrounding construction personnel and machines to avoid accidents. Modern rollers support the operator in controlling a lot of the factors by intelligent control and display technologies. The bundle of these technologies is summarized by the term "intelligent compaction".

The fundament for most the intelligent compaction technologies are sophisticated control technologies that measure the degree of compaction directly during the compaction process. The sensor also allow the detection of other parameters like positions (e.g. GPS) and temperatures. To ensure quality and the documentation of the process, intelligent compaction rollers store all the data for later analysis. In addition, position detection systems warn the operator in case of critical situation that bear the risk of roll-over accidents (ROPS2, Roll Over Preventative System)

Andreas Biedermann

Dr. Andreas Biedermann is head of the process & materials team in the corporate technology development of the Ammann Group. Before joining the Ammann Group he completed his doctorate at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH).

Contact: Sara Gribi

Marketing & Sales

Business Area Machines

Ammann Schweiz AG

Eisenbahnstrasse 25

4901 Langenthal

+41 / 62 916 64 34

sara.gribi@ammann-group.com