Higher productivity and lower pick replacement costs, despite extremely hard asphalt pavement layers

In the Netherlands, the contractor tested two different round-shank pick types for the selective removal of asphalt pavement layers with a large milling machine W 220 Fi. The round-shank pick types used in the comparison were the GENERATION X² and the new GENERATION PRO. The latter impressed with considerably longer service life and correspondingly longer pick replacement intervals.

The A9 near Amsterdam: the elimination of a bottleneck

The A9 motorway around Amsterdam is one of the busiest sections of the Dutch motorway network. Due to the close proximity to Amsterdam’s Schiphol International Airport, the heavy traffic on this section is made up not only of many thousands of daily commuters, but also airline passengers. This leads to long traffic jams that cost time and money and negative environmental impact. In response to these problems, the motorway is currently being widened to four lanes in each direction. At the same time, temporary traffic lanes constructed to bypass the construction work are being removed.

Extremely hard asphalt leads to faster wearing of conventional round-shank picks

A number of prominent construction contractors were involved in the roadworks. Among them, and responsible for the milling work, was Freesmij, one of the biggest asphalt milling services providers in the Netherlands. Applications engineer Gerard Roelofs and his milling crew carried out the selective removal of the various asphalt layers at temperatures close to freezing point. The surface layer had been paved with relatively soft low-noise asphalt. The situation changed when they got to the underlying binder and base layers, which, in the Netherlands, are very often made up of extremely hard asphalt. The wear on round-shank picks is usually very high when milling such materials. ‘Over the years, we have always been very pleased with the performance of the GENERATION X² round-shank picks. But the hard asphalt we have to deal with here is very tough on them’, says Roelofs Due to the working conditions and the many years of collaboration between Freesmij and Wirtgen, a joint effort in the development phase of the new GENERATION PRO cutting tools was only logical.

A large milling machine W 220 Fi was used in the comparative testing of the new round-shank picks of the GENERATION PRO and the similarly extremely robust GENERATION X². It is predestined for use in the removal of large areas of asphalt pavement in both full-depth reclamation and layer-by-layer removal of surface layers and binder courses.

Self-hardening carbide, thanks to extreme asphalt hardness

The new GENERATION PRO round-shank picks are made with a revolutionary self-hardening carbide. At high temperatures, the overall structural strength increases and considerably reduces wear on the carbide tip. To enable the determination of the service life benefits in absolute terms, the W 220 Fi from Freesmij was equipped with GENERATION X² and GENERATION PRO round-shank picks in Amsterdam. Reference picks of both types removed in the course of the working day were used to determine the differences in practice. At the end of the work on the construction site, the test paid off. Gerard Roelofs is now convinced by the outstanding performance of the GENERATION PRO round-shank picks: ‘The advantage of the PRO picks is that they last twice as long. We had to replace our old picks twice a day, but the PRO picks need replacing only once. That saves us both costs and time – and it’s good for the environment as well.’

Fewer pick changes reduce costs and physical effort

For the milling contractor, fewer pick changes mean more machine uptime, higher area performance per day, lower operating costs and a smaller carbon footprint. But machine operators also benefit from the new picks. After all, fewer pick changes mean less hard, physical work, and that’s really appreciated.

100% longer service life

Wirtgen remains true to its promise here, too: ‘Do more with less.’ Considerably more material can be removed in a single working day and the milling machine is ready to move on to the next milling job much faster. The new round-shank picks have an up to 100% longer service life.