The PM-200 cold planer shows its best in France

• 
• 24th November 2006
• Materials Handling
 

The Caterpillar® PM-200 cold planer has demonstrated its capacity and performance in the field against rival machines in France. The site where the Cat® cold planer has been working side by side with competitive machines is located on the A131 motorway in the region of Normandy and it harnesses all the constraints of present-day milling operations, for example: milling an area of 50,000 square meters in three days.

The contracting authority and prime contractor for the Normandy motorway site is SAPN and the job is carried out by Viafrance Normandie, a subsidiary of Eurovia. "We need to reinforce the pavement structure over four kilometres before relaying a surface course", explaines David Niger, site supervisor for Viafrance. To do this, the asphalt is being milled to a depth of twelve centimetres on the traffic lanes and six centimetres on the hard shoulder. "We contracted out the milling operations to Fraisage Services as we know that this firm will do a serious, professional job."

When selecting the right equipment for a jobsite Franck Valles, the manager of Fraisage Services, takes into account both the product and the services provided: "We have a total fleet of 14 milling machines. To me, the word ‘service’ is not just some vague notion. This is something on which I place a lot of emphasis, to show our customers that we are capable of responding and adapting to worksite constraints. I contacted several cold planer manufacturers to assess what they had to offer in terms of equipment and service. In this business, I prefer to talk face-to-face. My contacts with Bergerat Monnoyeur were excellent. They understood immediately what we needed and organized demonstrations of Caterpillar equipment."

50,000m² in three days
Milling large areas in a short time frame is where Fraisage Services excels: "As we are capable of employing the means to match production requirements, we generally put an extra man on jobs like this highway, where long stretches are involved. He is in charge of coordinating the water supply to the machines, truck distribution, proper marking, etc. This avoids needless stoppages and guarantees maximum output on the job," continues Valles. "Here we used four milling machines, three units with a working width of two metres plus a one-metre front-loading machine. We milled 17,000m² on the first day, 16,000m² the second day and 17,000m² again on the third day."

One of the machines was a Caterpillar PM-200. "This is an ideal worksite to test the capacity of this cold planer under real-life conditions. Firstly, the material is hard and abrasive - typical of Normandy asphalt made with good quality local materials - and, secondly, the PM-200 is working alongside rival machines of the same category," Valles explains. "For the time being, the operators are satisfied with the performance of the PM-200. This is the machine we’re opening with and its competitors are not catching it up. A most important thing is that initial reports from the site appear to show that it wears out fewer cutting tools than rival machines." This is an essential point as, due to the heavy-duty properties of the material, the competitive machines are using three or four sets of tools (a maximum of 600 units) every day, compared with two-and-a-half sets (a maximum of 400 units) on the PM-200. "The two spray lines mounted on the drum come into their own on a job like this one where the material is hard and abrasive. They spray plenty of water on to the cutting tools, which lubricates and cools them considerably. As a result, there is less wear," Pierre Boully, the area sales manager for Caterpillar’s French dealer Bergerat Monnoyeur, explains.

Claude Leuferre, a plant operator for Fraisage Services, is also satisfied with the machine: "This is the first time I’ve worked on a Caterpillar cold planer. I was a little apprehensive about the control panel being centralized in relation to the rival system, which is offset. But you soon get used to it. The automatic control functions really make it easier to operate. With a forward speed of 8m/min, this cold planer keeps up with the pace of the job. I appreciate the various devices on the Caterpillar machine to simplify use and daily maintenance of the machine. For example, the accessibility of the track greasing points or the side cubbies for the sensor screens: they can be put away safely without having to be disconnected. Likewise, the possibility of adjusting a sensor from the opposite control is a bonus from a safety aspect that you don’t get from competitors."

100% Caterpillar
"Cold planers and asphalt pavers are built by Caterpillar’s Global Paving division in Italy," Pierre Boully explains. "For example, the ACERT™ C18 driving the PM-200 is fully integrated into the machine process, it takes on board the requirements of the cold planer and delivers it all its power". Another strong point, the cold planer is equipped with a wet clutch with automatic belt tension adjustment. "This boosts the efficiency of the torque transmission, guarantees long component life and therefore implies lower service costs", explained Gilles Fouchet, demonstrator for Bergerat Monnoyeur, who went on to emphasize the machine steering functions: "With the large steering wheel turning angle and the coordinated steering modes of the four tracks, the rotor can work at a tangent to produce smooth curves. The hydraulic motors of the hydrostatic propel system provide balanced tractive effort".

If the  PM-200 cold planer fulfils the core criteria of the milling market, it’s not by accident. This machine shows how Caterpillar is going about meeting its target of leading the field across all categories of construction equipment: by offering a technological option, combined with the sales force and service skills of its distribution network. "For the French cold planer market, Caterpillar’s  PM-200 offers a real technological alternative that, backed by the sales force and service skills of the Bergerat Monnoyeur, will gradually make a difference. Technically speaking, Cat machines give rival equipment more a run for its money as the demonstrations proved," Pierre Boully adds.
               
More information:

Caterpillar Information Centre
6, The Western Centre,
Bracknell, RG12 1RW
Tel: +44 7000 222 846,
Fax: +44 1344 488045