Caterpillar PM 200 cold planner joined in the Beijing World Trade Centre emergency repair program.
On March 9, 2006, the side road of the third ring collapsed due to an underground water pipe bursting. As this is in Beijing’s CBD, it was critical to repair the area quickly. After careful consideration, the command team selected PM200 cold planners to repair the road. The program attracted great attention as the conditions for the program were fairly complicated. Caterpillar dealer – WesTrac sent its professional engineers to help with the emergency repair.
This section is located under Guomao Bridge with very heavy traffic. There are numerous pipes, cables, wires, drainage shafts and sewage wells underground so the PM200 was limited to working in an 8-meter wide area to maintain the normal traffic flow.
It needed to constantly change the planning depth within an area of 100 meters as well as avoid cutting the sewage wells. The total area to plane was about 2000 m2. The Caterpillar PM200 has a weight of 30 tons and is very flexible with independent turning capability on all corners which enabled the planer to move into position quickly. With the Caterpillar C18 ACERT engine, the planner had plenty of power in reserve, low noise levels and could be easily managed by the operator. This enabled adjusting the machine position more than 30 times helped by the ground control equipment which allowed the operator to lower the machine and then automatically recover its original levelling settings thus optimizing the planning speed and
efficiency. Planning depth ranged from 2 cm to 4 cm and was set with the levelling knob coupled to a digital display on the ground. The site engineer was able to set different depths to guarantee the accuracy and controllability of the planner. The 100-meter-long and 8-meter-wide collapse area was renovated within 12 hours. Engineers from WesTrac were proud to be involved and to complete this remarkable job in a crucial section of Beijing.
The outstanding productivity, maintenance performance automated operational system as well as the performances of the PM-200 were fully recognized by the customer and operators.
The wide PM200 operational deck is equipped with protection devices which are important in road construction as they enable the operator to observe the track movement of the planner and thus ensure operational safety.
The truck’s position changes in accordance with the operation side during the process of construction. PM200 is able to transport the milled materials into the truck with its swinging conveyor wherever the truck is located beside the planer. The front-end discharge conveyor is designed so well that it is capable of preventing spillage of materials that can cause secondary pollution.