Offering customers even better service: strong system partnership between Wirtgen and Streumaster

A host of new developments from Wirtgen, Vögele, Hamm and Kleemann for road construction, road rehabilitation and the processing of mineral raw materials impressively verified the capabilities of the Wirtgen Group within the framework of the third "Technology Days" event held on September 25 and 26, 2008. More than 2,400 trade visitors accepted the invitation to attend the event, held this year at Hamm AG. No less than three occasions predestined the world's third largest manufacturer of compaction equipment to be the organizer of this event: the company's 130th anniversary, the world debut of the new HD+ tandem rollers and the opening of the world's most modern drum factory in Tirschenreuth.

Construction experts from more than 50 countries travelled to Bavaria to obtain a personal impression of the latest and most innovative road construction applications and processes. About half of the visitors were from non-European countries. The specialists of the Wirtgen Group, which generated consolidated sales in 2007 of EUR 1.42 billion, put the Group's products on show in exciting live demonstrations. The equipment and systems presented will allow construction firms to continue to handle their tasks professionally and efficiently in the future.

Extensive live demonstrations: six construction processes and 25 machines

The Wirtgen Group certainly hit the mark with the visitors, focussing on application engineering. They experienced over 25 different machines in live demonstrations involving six different construction processes. The visitors were impressed by the latest developments from the Wirtgen Group, such as "hot on hot" paving with compact asphalt using InLine Pave equipment from Vögele and subsequent compaction of the asphalt layers with the new heavy-duty HD+ tandem roller from Hamm, equipped with the innovative HCQ Asphalt Navigator. Equally impressive was the removal of an asphalt surface using a Wirtgen W 2200 cold milling machine with a 4-m-wide milling drum unit to ensure maximum daily performance.

The other demonstrations of technologies from the Wirtgen Group were also received with great interest:

• Dynamic compaction with oscillation: the VIO single drum compactor from Hamm achieved optimum compaction results in the shortest time in oscillation mode.
• Soil stabilization: how to precisely achieve the requisite load-bearing capacity of soil was demonstrated by the use of the SW 16 SC binder spreader from Streumaster in combination with a WR 2400 soil stabilizer from Wirtgen and Hamm 3414 and 3520 vibratory compactors equipped with Hammtronic.
• Repairing small areas: once the extremely manoeuvrable Wirtgen W 50 DC small milling machine had precisely removed the asphalt, a SUPER 800 mini paver from Vögele paved a narrow strip just 80 cm wide. The professional compaction was handled by tandem rollers from the Compact Line.
• Cold recycling with foamed bitumen: milling and mixing the milled material with the binding agent is the task of the WR 2500 S Recycler. When compacting with a 3518 HT vibratory compactor, the specialists from Hamm demonstrated how simple it is to achieve homogeneous compaction results using the HCQ GPS Navigator.
• Fine milling: the possibilities of fine milling were demonstrated using the latest W 150 large milling machine. The milling drum of the W 150, which had a working width of 1.50 m, is fitted with more than 500 cutters.
• InLine Pave: directly afterwards, a Vögele SUPER 1800-2 equipped with SprayJet module paved a thin layer hot on hot on the freshly milled track. A tandem roller of the DV series operating in oscillation mode then completely compacted the new surface in just a few passes.

The international visitors were equally enthusiastic about the tremendous range of potential applications and the quality and precision that is now possible thanks to modern systems, such as Level Pro, HCQ and ErgoPlus, as they were about the informative explanations regarding the application engineering.

After the live demonstrations, the visitors had ample opportunity to inspect the machines and the freshly paved or milled road surfaces and to talk to the experts from the respective manufacturing plants. Furthermore, the application specialists imparted a wealth of know-how of practical relevance in the expert presentations on cold milling and cold recycling, asphalt paving and compaction. A panel discussion was held on the topic of "InLine Paving" with external speakers from research and the industry.

World premiere of the new HD+ series

On the evening of 25 September, the guests witnessed the world premiere of the new "HD+" tandem rollers. After a fast-paced animation, an HD+ 120 and an HD+ 140 were unveiled. The guests were tremendously interested in the heavy, articulated tandem rollers and they wasted no time surrounding the brand new machines once they were unveiled to get a closer look at all the details. These new articulated tandem rollers with an operating weight of 12 t and 14 t respectively set new standards with an unprecedented amount of cabin space, perfect visibility conditions for the driver and absolutely impressive performance data.

Well over 80 machines exhibited

The exhibition of more than 80 machines impressively underlined the position of the Wirtgen Group as the market leader for mobile road construction machines, road rehabilitation machines and the processing of mineral raw materials. No fewer than 10 of the machines were new models: in addition to the two brand new HD+ tandem rollers from Hamm, Wirtgen presented a new development in the field of cold recycling with the KMA 220 mobile cold recycling mixing plant and the world's most modern cold milling machine, the W 150 with the WIDRIVE machine control system. System partner Streumaster presented its new SW 3 FC front spreader and the "Crocodile" self-propelled spreader with carrying vehicle. Vögele brought a complete InLine Pave train to Tirschenreuth and also presented two pavers from its VISION series, which is developed specifically for the North American market. Kleemann presented its MOBICAT MC 120 Z mobile jaw crusher for the recycling and processing of natural stone.

130 years of Hamm: Performance – Design – Innovation

Together with presenting the latest technology, Hamm also provided an insight into its company history in a fascinating presentation to mark its 130th anniversary. With the theme of "130 years of Hamm: Performance – Design – Innovation", Hamm linked its own history with the technical development of road rollers and road construction materials. In this respect, it became clear that the oldest roller manufacturer in the world that is still an active player today produced numerous path-breaking innovations over the decades in the field of compaction technology and road construction. The charming backdrop for the diversified retrospective was a presentation of restored historical rollers built in the period from 1923 to 1973.

World's most modern drum plant opened

A counterpoint to the historical machines was represented by the new drum plant of Hamm AG. Ultramodern forming and processing machines, welding robots and an exceptionally eco-friendly paint shop are now in operation in the recently opened, 10,000 m² plant. Here, Hamm will produce approx. 14,000 drums per year for all roller models. In the world's most modern drum plant, the guests saw a live demonstration of how Hamm manufactures the drums using the latest technology to achieve utmost precision. The highlight was the 4-drum round bending machine, which produces the drum blank from sheet metal and the 13-axis welding robot that accurately secures the circular blanks in the drums.