Machinery Used in Road Construction
Imagine a road construction without any machine. People long time ago may find it possible but it would take forever to finish the construction. Machines are made and improved as time went by for better performance. Machines make life easier. They use power to obtain forces and movement aimed. Every machine has its uses and special function. It has parts which play important roles in order for it to function. There are machineries that are commonly used in a road construction like jack hammer, backhoe, bulldozer, motor grader, dump truck, concrete mixer, etc. These equipment are operated by the construction workers. A jackhammer is most commonly used for breaking hard surfaces. It is often used in first part of the road construction especially in breaking the old roads for renovation. A backhoe is used for excavating with the help of its digging bucket and load them into the dump truck where the dump truck transports the sand, gravel and other loose materials. The backhoe and dump truck are always partners during construction since the backhoe is for loading while the dump truck is for carrying and transporting the loads. A bulldozer is used for pushing large quantities of soil and other materials during construction. The motor grader is for creating flat surfaces and to bring the earthwork the desired shape and elevation then the cement or the asphalt will be distributed throughout the flat surface. The concrete mixer is used for mixing the sand or gravel, cement and water to form a concrete. These are some of the machineries that can usually be seen during road construction.
It takes time to finish constructing a road. If the road is needed to be closed for construction, it creates heavy traffic that is why machineries are useful and helpful for fast operation. Road construction is normally disturbing because aside from the heavy traffic that it could create, the equipment used also makes noise and most areas where there is road construction, there is no operation at night which can disturb the residents. The machineries also need maintenance for better performance and to avoid problem in operation. In repair and maintenance, the technicians are mostly the ones to go to the location of the machinery because of its size and weight and it would take time for it to be transferred. Operators should be familiar and are skilled with the machineries that they used for fast operation as well as to avoid early malfunctions. Machineries that are in need of replacement are necessary for transfer and it will affect the contract duration. It is as much as possible be prevented just like an example when the concrete mixer will encounter a problem during mixing the cement, it will surely affect the operation since the workers have to it manually.
Engineers and Architects are innovative in designing new machines. It is important to choose what type and size of machineries to be used in construction as they can affect the time and effort as well as the productivity of a project. Modern machineries are used because of its efficiency and speed in performance. Engineers and technicians should also be ready all the time to fix and maintain the machineries.