Often, preparing an asphalt mixture is compared
to baking a cake. A contractor needs to make sure he/she has an accurate recipe
and proper ingredients and that he/she blends everything at the correct ratios
and “bakes” the mixture to produce a beautiful, homogeneous final product that
everyone will be happy with – a blend that will perform as anticipated when
properly applied on a roadway.
There are two basic types of plants that
are used in the process of making asphalt mixtures: batch plants and drum
plants.
Batch plants make small accurate “batches”
of asphalt mixture through a process that is repeated over and over until the
total tonnage for a project has been manufactured.
The advantages
Drum plants, on the other hand, prepare the
asphalt mix through a continuous process and require the use of silos for
temporary storage prior to the mix being trucked to the paving location.
The advantages
Main differences: