Page 172 - Peterson 85 Years and Going Strong

Left to right: Car caught in a collapsed section of the SF-Oakland Bay Bridge in 1989; Loma Prieta earthquake ‘pancaked’ the Cypress Structure on I-880 in Oakland, California in 1989
up well and has to last a long time. It’s also some- thing that would flex yet be nearly bulletproof. The material actually creates a chemical reaction that increases its heat for a period of time, which is why placement is done in an extremely tight window.” OCJ had used the epoxy mix on the same bridge back in 1976. Some three billion car crossings later, it had proven its value.
Even before the paving began, the team had to ap- ply a unique bond coat to help the material adhere to the steel. “Normally trucks can drive right onto the mat to deliver the asphalt, but because of the sensitivity of the bond coat, we couldn’t do that,” explains Kolander. “Instead, we used an MTV to run alongside our paver, which fed an uninterrupt- ed flow of material into the hopper.”1 It was a per- fect match.
During the twelve-day contract, OCJ used a Cat AP1055E paver to lay down two one-inch lifts of epoxy asphalt, followed by three Cat rollers. The job used 4,900 tons of EAC, and while that wasn’t a record amount, the temperamental material and tight logistics made it a significant project for OCJ. “We planned out the sequence of every pav- ing pass to allow enough time for the bond coat to be applied, the joints to be cut, and still main-
1 MTV stands for material transfer vehicle.
tain a through-lane for the haul trucks to reach the MTV,” explains Bill Jensen, OCJ’s lead engi- neer on the job. Accessibility to the site was only possible through two other contracts on either side of OCJ. Each had its own spread of equipment, trucks, and tradesmen to coordinate, which made planning and execution of the OCJ contract both vital and intense.
For OCJ’s equipment manager, Mel Frisk, it was imperative that all the equipment run smoothly to meet the deadline. The stickiness of the epoxy ma- terial was an ongoing issue. “We tried to use our ground contact skis on the Cat paver to keep the mat smooth, but the epoxy kept sticking to them and dragging along the ground, so we switched to our non-contact skis. Other than that, we had very few problems. We had people standing by in case of any problems. And we had good operators who knew what they were doing. It all went pretty well.”
Kolander was pleased with the outcome and the product support OCJ got from Peterson. “Since it was such a complicated and high-profile project, we required high-production, quality equipment with 100 percent uptime. We’ve always looked at Peterson as a partner. Their support and knowl- edge of the Cat product are unsurpassed. They are
170 | PETERSON: 85 YEARS AND GOING STRONG