Mechanised Concrete Paving Technology

The Indian concrete paving equipment industry is undoubtedly a major beneficiary of the current spurt in infrastructure projects currently being witnessed in the country. Modern concrete paving machinery now readily available in the marketplace has gradually started replacing conventional manual system of paving (which was being deployed in India owing to non-availability of suitable equipment, expandable delivery schedules and most importantly low labour costs). With manual paving methods no longer relevant, the contracting community has realized the need to shift to a mechanized concrete paving method to meet the stringent delivery schedules at minimal costs

Advantages of Mecanised Paving

Mechanised Paving has many advantages over the conventional systems such as:

1.  Uniform compaction and finish to very close tolerance can be achieved by mechanized paving which is very difficult with manual paving.

2.  Higher rate of production enabling fast comple- tion of project, production rate of around 200 sq.

mt/hr to 400 sq.mt/hr can be achieved with mechanical paving which is very difficult with

manual paving.

3.  It is an accepted fact that voluminous and large area concreting is performed better by mechanized paving methods rather than manual methods in order to obtain better quality of slab in terms of compaction (strength) and finish

4. For manual lining, normally SLEEPERS are provided at every 10 m interval for ease of sub grade preparations.  No such SLEEPER are required for mechanized paving since concrete is

done continuously.

5.  In manual paving, slabs are cast in panels; hence there are a large number of construc- tion joints, which results in leakage/seepage of water at these joints.  In mechanized paving, construction joints exist only at closure of day's work, hence no such leakage/seepage problem.  For continuous mechanized C.C. lining, slabs are provided with contraction/

expansion joints.

6. There is always a chance of overrun and wastage of concrete in manual paving whereas there is no chance of such wastage of concrete in mechanized paving.

7. Manual concreting is laborious, slow and entirely dependent on manual skills, i.e., a large army of skilled masons is mandatory if speed and consis- tency in the quality of work is required.

8.  Mechanized Paving has a cost advantage over manual paving. Detailed analysis has proved at various places that the mechanized paving is not only faster but also works out nearly 2/3rd of thecost of manual paving.

8. Concreting of STEEP inclined surface, which is\ very difficult by manual methods, becomes an easy task with mechanized paving technologies.