Automated functions ensure outstanding performance

The first F-Series large milling machine was recently delivered to Sicilian road construction contractor Sicilstrade. Its first project: rehabilitation work on sections of the SS126 and SS626 national highways in the heartland of the island.

The landscape is picturesque and these roads are a joy to drive on. Rising and falling as they hug the sides of the hills, these winding roads with tight bends treat drivers to wonderful views of the surrounding countryside. But it’s often a challenging task when they need to be repaired or resurfaced. The site logistics and the choice of equipment have to be carefully planned to minimise road closures and keep them as short as possible. Sicilstrade therefore deliberately chose a W 210 Fi large milling machine for milling off the entire width of the road surface in only 2 to 3 passes for the rehabilitation work on the SS126 and SS626 national highways.

Outstanding results from the first cut on

The lengths of the individual sections of the rehabilitation project varied between 50 and 500 m. In rehabilitation measures of this kind, the milling machine is repositioned several times a day and moves from one section to the next partly under its own power. The clear advantage of the new F-Series technology: the machine delivered the desired milling pattern with the first cut, even on short sections.

Mill Assist guarantees optimal milling quality

The Mill Assist assistance system monitors the milling quality and delivers a perfect surface from the first metre on. The results are consistently good on each individual section, no matter whether it’s 50 m long to a milling depth of 3 cm or 500 m to a depth of 5 cm. The operator can rely completely on the machine and concentrate fully on offloading the milled material to transport vehicles and the milling cut. This meant that the individual patches could be milled off in record time and allowed the completion of several sections per day. ‘I’ve been working with Wirtgen equipment for a long time, including milling machines of this size. And I must say that I’m really impressed by the new features of the F-Series.’

The W 210 Fi impresses with outstanding maneuverability

The combination of outstanding manoeuvrability, material offloading capacity and flexibility made the machine the ideal choice for the project on these winding roads. An experienced paving team from Sicilstrade was always on site, ready to fill out each new patch directly behind the machine. Off with the old asphalt pavement and in with the new in only a couple of hours – without any serious disruption of traffic due to road closures. All of which was achievable only with a W 210 Fi large milling machine from Wirtgen. ‘We are only working on small patches here, and the machine does a superb job. I can hardly wait to see how it performs on a bigger construction project’, says Prainito.

Considerably higher quality on construction sites

On this project, a whole range of automated functions like positioning in a second cut or automatic tracking of the discharge conveyor speeded up the process and led to considerably higher quality of the results produced on the construction site. Above all here, the combination of Mill Assist, the ability to save and store milling depths and automatic positioning of the milling drum in each new cut made it particularly easy to complete the milling work on the differently sized patches.

The W 210 Fi proved its flexibility in every respect and also showed that it is the ideal machine for projects with complex logistical challenges.