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| Article form CMI News, Fall 1997 |
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Bimasco, Incorporated, of Hauppage, New York, has been serving the emulsified asphalt product needs of municipalities and contractors on Long Island since 1956.
Because of a direct connection between asphalt emulsion products and in-place road reclamation, Bimasco established a unit of the company [in 1988] dedicated strictly to this rapidly expanding construction technology.
The present day "Flagship" of Bimasco’s reclamation equipment roster is a CMI RS-650 ROTO-MIXERTM, which was purchased in 1996 to gain the benefits of the industry’s most powerful reclaimer/stabilizer. Shortly after its purchase, Bimasco (working as sub-contractor for J.D. Posillico Co., Inc.) put the RS-650 to work on a project at the [closed] Northrop! Grumman airport facility in Bethpage, New York. The task at hand was to salvage the materials in a runway 3,048 m/10,000 ft. long, by 45.72 m/150 ft. wide. The full depth asphalt pavement was 28 cm/i 1 in. deep. Specifications required that the finished gradation be 5.08 cm/2 in. minus. The material (which totaled 4.205 cu. m/5,499 cu. yds.) was recovered in single passes and stockpiled for use as base material for new roads and parking facilities on the site.
On another private sector project, Bimasco, as prime contractor, used their RS-650 ROTO-MIXER to recycle a 35 year old parking lot at the Birchwood Shopping Center in Jericho, New York.
Specifications called for mixing the 7.62 cm/3 in. deteriorated asphalt pavement and the 10.16 cm/4 in. crushed stone base to a depth of 17.78 cm/7 in., after which it was leveled and compacted to serve as a stabilized base for a 5.08 cm/2 in. overlay of hot-mix asphalt. While the total project involved 18,394.27 sq. m/22,000 sq. yds. of surface, in order to provide parking space for patrons of the center, daily production was limited to 7,525.93 sq. m/9,000 sq. yds. In addition to expected deterioration, this lot was rife with obstacles such as light stanchions, drainage boxes and manholes, in addition to a concrete curb requiring a zero clearance cut. One location in particular (at the lowest drainage point in the lot) contained two drainage boxes and a circular manhole, all within an area measuring 3 in/10 ft. square. The maneuverability of the RS-650, especially its "crab" steering, proved invaluable at this point. Bimasco’s first CMI product was an RS-500B ROTO-MIXER, equipped with the liquid additive system, purchased in 1995. This unit has seen much service since its acquisition, particularly on road reclaiming projects for municipalities. One such project involved a subcontract for King’s Park Industries, who has the prime contract with the town of Huntington, New York, to recycle roads as directed by the town highway superintendent. Design specifications on these jobs require that 9 liters /2.5 gals. of SSlh asphalt emulsion be mixed with each .84 sq. in/i sq. yd. of surface, to a depth of 17.78 cm/7 in. The RS-500 provided single-pass mixing to the specified depth, with the emulsion application controlled to absolute accuracy by its on board computer (which meters the additive flow in sync with the forward travel of the machine).
On this job, totaling 20,903 sq. m/25,000 sq. yds., mixing was accomplished at the average rate of 152 cm/60 ft. per minute while pushing the tanker truck loaded with emulsion. The work involved the usual obstacles of manholes and drainage boxes, plus one cul-de-sac.
Following mixing, the material was compacted by a single drum vibratory compactor, followed by a 9.07 mt/10 ton pneumatic-tired roller. Density was verified by nuclear testing, following which a test by the Benkleman Beam Method established that deflection met tolerances. A 3.81 cm/1.5 in. lift of NY State Type 6 asphalt completed the job. Huntington highway superintendent William Naughton said, "Using this reconstruction method, we are able to provide a stable base for our pavement overlay, while at the same time re-establishing the center line and crown to maintain drainage flow." Grant Hendricks, CEO of Bimasco, discussing history of Island construction and his company philosophy, stated: "People in the road construction industry on Long Island have always had to deal with two problems: 1) The absence [on the Island] of quality aggregate for roadbuilding, and 2) The high cost of transporting and/or disposing of excavated materials.
"For the past 100 years, the crushed stone used in Long Island’s roads has been transported from Upstate New York or Connecticut by barge or long-distance truck haul. Thus, the high cost of quality materials, and the decreasing availability of dump sites [where discarded road materials were previously disposed of] have been the driving forces in the evolution of full depth in-place recycling which has become the method of choice for highway commissioners and superintendents throughout the Island.
"We started our road recycling business using products which were competitive to CMI. However, it became apparent that profits could be increased using equipment with higher production rates than we were experiencing, hence our acquisition, in 1995, of our first CMI machine, the RS-500B.
"The production capacity afforded us by CMI technology has enabled us to get on and off projects in ever decreasing time frames. Truck traffic at job sites is minimal, and in almost every case, the road remains open to traffic.
"As our field of exposure in the industry expands, municipal agencies, consulting engineers and contractors continue to come up with innovative ideas for utilizing the capabilities of the highly-productive and dependable [CMI] reclaimers.
"We anticipate that this technology will continue to grow as Long Island rebuilds existing pavements with the in-place materials which have been bought and paid for over the past 100 years,” Hendricks concluded.
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