Nov
23
2010
How Do You Pave a Road with a 31º Slope?
0How Do You Pave a Road with a 31º Slope?
The turns in the racetrack at Daytona International Speedway bank at a 31º slope. Conventional road paving techniques won’t work at that angle. Here’s how it’s done:
Unlike repaving a street in your neighborhood, Daytona’s a banked surface designed to allow cars to reach speeds as high as 210 mph. This means crews have to carefully mill and grade each turn for the appropriate angle.
Once the appropriate angle is set, a large dump truck carrying asphalt transfers the crushed rock to a small buggy, which then transports the asphalt to the hydraulic crane. So far this process isn’t much different from how it’s normally done, but the next step involves a lot of engineering.
The asphalt is transferred from the crane to an ABG Titan 525 Paver, which lays it along the surface of the track. In order to achieve the angle the paver’s suspended from the track at a 31-degree angle by a Caterpillar D9 Bulldozer at the top of the track. This is followed by a Hamm DV-8 Double Steel Drum Roller, also suspended by a bulldozer. The Drum Roller uses its immense 40,000 pounds of weight to crush the material into a smooth surface. This is repeated numerous times until the surface is dense enough to support racing.
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