Products & Equipment Paving Week Roads & Paving Technology
Concrete Milling  with GENERATION C² round-shank picks  is the cost-efficient and sustainable alternative: Wirtgen

ANTIOCH, TN — Wirtgen has developed GENERATION C² round-shank picks for milling concrete with the company’sECO Cutter milling drums.

Wirtgen states the round-shank picks have a high resistance to fracturing, low wear and long service life. This reduces operating costs when removing concrete pavement by cold milling and conserves valuable resources.

Wirtgen notes use of concrete for paving road surfaces is an increasingly attractive option due to the long-lasting and durable nature of the material. However, if the concrete pavement needs rehabilitation or repair, conventional methods such as breaking and rubblizing or excavation and crushing of the damaged concrete is laborious and costly. According to Wirtgen, a cost-effective alternative is concrete milling.

ECO Cutter milling drums are an ideal choice for the removal of large areas of concrete pavement, the company explains, as their reduced number of round-shank picks with larger tool spacings increases the force applied by each pick. This leads to a higher machine advance rate and in turn ensures higher area performance.

Wirtgen notes that concrete milling is an established technology around the world and, thanks to advances, almost all hardnesses and grades of concrete pavement can be cost-efficiently removed with the cold milling method. The benefits of this include:

• Ability to remove reinforced concrete pavements containing tie-bars, dowels and rebar mats.
• Allows for the separation of concrete layers with different properties, thereby reducing the proportion of contaminated material.
• In most cases, milled concrete can be recycled without any further treatment.
• The vibration-free procedure is characterized by low noise and low dust emissions, and fulfills all official building regulations, economic provisions and other relevant requirements.