With billions being spent on highway construction worldwide, governments are looking to make sure their investments last as long as possible.

One way of ensuring this is to carry out laboratory and on site testing of the materials being used, particularly the all-important wearing surface.

Specialist companies now offer the widest possible range of sophisticated products to carry out tests, which can save considerable sums of money in the long run.

For example, TECNOTEST, which has been manufacturing machinery and equipment for testing different kinds of building materials for over 40 years, says that while recent advances in asphalt testing have generated demand for new solutions, its past achievements “have more than adequately prepared it to rise to the challenge.”

The roller compaction and wheel tracking apparatus from TECNOTEST offers two solutions in one machine

Indeed, as asphalt mix performance tests have now become a reality, the company asked itself “how can we overcome such challenges in a field where dynamic tests are the rule? Is our technology applied to static machinery sufficient?”.

“These and other questions are posed all the time at TECNOTEST so our products encounter very few problems.” However, the company felt that in the long term it would not pay off to simply duplicate the same products already being offered, not least because it is very unlikely for a duplicate to be better than the original.

“So we decided to enter into strategic alliances with companies already highly specialised in their own fields and which, like TECNOTEST, manufacture machinery with higher performance and durability thanks to a well-balanced combination of innovative as well as tried and tested technology.”

One of such alliance began some years ago with a well-established Texan, US, company, which specialised in manufacturing the Gyratory Compactor B 100, which is used for making asphalt mix specimens, both to the methods and procedures prescribed by current American standards and with TECNOTEST’s contribution according to the most recent European standards. Its compact design makes it ideal for use both in the laboratory and on site.

Also in static testing, the company has its own Multitest T 052/E machine for various types of tests, including Marshall and CBR [California Bearing Ratio] tests.

Because of its capacity to allow various speeds in a continuous range, applications may vary while assuring high accuracy and ease of operation. Now available is the latest addition to the company’s range, a new, more economical, analog version of the Multitest, the T 051/B65 multi-speed machine, with six fixed speeds to cover the classic Marshall and CBR test speeds. It is a redesigned version of its popular model T 051.

TECNOTEST’s new model T 051/B65 multi-speed machine “Our aim was to produce a more competitive machine while maintaining, unaltered, former specifications and functions.

In particular we wanted to maintain the brushless motor, which is the best possible solution to ensure that set speed is maintained independently from load while also guaranteeing precision, reduced noise output and low energy consumption. This type of motor requires little maintenance and so the same solution was also chosen for the reduction gear unit. The remake involved structural re-dimensioning to avoid wasteful excess and is built to last even under adverse conditions,” says TECNOTEST.

“The result is totally coherent with TECNOTEST’s objectives which have always been to manufacture testing equipment that is meant to have a long life and to work well, the economic factor should therefore be evaluated in the long term perspective.

“Now, if mix analysis, compaction and above all the static tests are already standard practice for TECNOTEST, we cannot claim as much for the new frontier involving dynamic testing, not least considering the recent European standards and the directives regarding the CE marking of bituminous mixes.”

Here, a close cooperation began with the US company GCTS, based in Phoenix, Arizona, which already had over 15 years’ experience in geotechnical, pavement and rock testing of the dynamic kind, and which had made of technology and research applied to the needs of laboratory testing its core business. “It is to GCTS that we owe their ATM-025 Asphalt Mix Performance Tester. We like to define it as the complete solution for asphalts. It has a modular design so it can be configured for testing asphalt mixes according to the methods and procedures prescribed by the European standards with a mind to CE marking as well as to those prescribed by the American ASTM and AASHTO standards.”

TECNOTEST’s own contribution for performing advanced tests on road material testing laboratories was launched last year with the roller compaction and wheel-tracking apparatus model B 120/B26, which is different because it offers two solutions in one machine thus enabling slabs of bituminous mixture to be produced at a controlled density which are subsequently subjected to the wheel tracking test using the same apparatus and, after that, to the four-point flexural test using a GCTS machine. Published in World Highways March 2011 Issue in Materials Testing http://www.worldhighways.com