Road Construction Method By Applying Heavy Equipment Technology Innovation

Economic growth and development indicators of a country may be associated with the infrastructure development. Road, bridge, skyscrapers, housing, dams, seaport and airport constructions are some real indicators of infrastructure growth of a city or a country.

Ministry of Public Work of Indonesia stated that total length of national road is 38,750 kilometers in 2013. Comparably, the current vehicle population growth outpaces the existing road. Damaged road due to overload, improper drainage and low road quality factors worsen the transportation condition in Indonesia. To have better and optimal road quality, it requires road construction and rehabilitation innovation technology, which will simplify the work, reduce construction costs and accelerate the project completion period.

Technology Innovation of Road Construction
Technology innovation of road construction can be conducted by considering some supporting aspects, which are: raw material, method and equipment.

Raw Material for Road Construction
Technology innovation of road pavement, such as aggregate, asphalt, concrete, asphalt and concrete mix, and other additive material can improve the road quality and tolerate some external factors among others weather, water and  excessive vehicle payload. Technology innovation of road pavement in some advanced countries, such as Germany, England, United States of America, have been using Stone Mastic Asphalt/SMA, porous asphalt, warm mix asphalt and superpave asphalt. On the other hand, Indonesia still applies mixture of asphalt concrete as the filler by utilizing some materials such as lime, bagasse ash of sugar cane, rice husk ash, plastic waste and others. The technology is widely applied in some regions in Indonesia.

Road Construction Method
In the process of work application to develop good quality and cost-efficient road construction project, it does not only need the proper equipment and working processes, but also technology innovation method, road construction and reconstruction equipment.

In an unstable road rehabilitation work, the rehabilitated road will easily damage due to less optimal soil condition during pavement process. It requires additional materials such as lime, cement or other additive materials and appropriate heavy equipment to stabilize the unstable soil surface.

The soil stabilizer heavy equipment is so-called stabilizer or recycler. The equipment can crush and mix the soil with additive material and water in a single compartment and repave the unstable soil. This is one example of material, methods and heavy equipment technology that utilized optimally to develop better road quality.

In the road rehabilitation project, asphalt surface rehabilitation is generally conducted by patching or directly paving new asphalt layer above the damaged road using excavator, which less efficient in the application. The more efficient and appropriate heavy equipment is cold milling which has function to neatly peel up damaged asphalt surface with precise thickness. The equipment is able to peel up to 32 centimeters of thickness and maximum 200 centimeters wide with productivity at 10,000 square meters per day. By applying the equipment, road rehabilitation processes will be completed faster with more satisfying result.

Equipment for Road Construction
Other heavy equipment technology innovation that applicable for road construction or road rehabilitation is BOMAG Economizer, Vario Control and Asphalt Manager. Those three technologies are able to monitor soil or asphalt surface solidity level through panel monitor inside the cabin. The technology enables the operator to examine the precise solidity of soil or asphalt with more effective and efficient as the operator will stop working when the soil condition is well-paved. In addition, the technology also provides vibration effect with different frequency and amplitude values for each road to have more identical pavement result.

Efficient and Optimal
There are two considerations to improve cost efficiency in road construction project. Firstly, we should choose the appropriate heavy equipment. We realize that fuel consumption cost contributes more than 60% of heavy equipment operational cost. Hence, fuel efficiency technology is very crucial.

Besides offering road compactor heavy equipment technology under BOMAG brand, PT United Tractors Tbk (UT) also provides two types of excavators, which are Komatsu PC200-8 New Generation and the fuel-efficient PC160LC-8. These excavators can save fuel by improving radiator cooling ability, reduce hydraulic loss in the main valve and hydraulic circuit, and reduce auto-deceleration engine speed.

Second, we need an optimal heavy equipment operational management technology. Komatsu, as a prominent heavy equipment brand, provides KOMTRAX (Komatsu Machine Tracking System) and EMSS (Equipment Management Monitoring System) technologies in each of the heavy equipment.

KOMTRAX helps the user to monitor the heavy equipment from the distance by using computer or other electronic devices such as tablet. Meanwhile, EMMS technology can be implemented to help the operator adjusting the application of main pump pressure accordingly.

The appropriate material, method and equipment technologies in road construction will improve road quality, particularly in cities in Indonesia, that eventually support the MP3EI program as the government’s flagship program in sustaining economic growth.