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READY TO ROLL

Curb Roller Manufacturing created a 24-foot-wide custom drum to complete a
Missouri ditch liner project. Realm Construction poured 400-450 linear feet of
concrete a day and finished the project more than one week ahead of schedule.

January 1, 2021
3089


HOW 1,000 POUNDS OF SPINNING METAL CHANGED THE MISSOURI DITCH LINER INDUSTRY

Near the Kansas City International Airport lies a well-traveled stretch of road
that connects NE Cookingham Drive to I-435. A 20-mile jaunt separates the
airport from downtown Kansas City, and while some drivers might make their way
via the direct I-29 route, others choose the I-435 route that might take a
little longer but sees less traffic.

If drivers happened to take the Cookingham/I-435 route during late summer 2019,
they may have caught a glimpse of an impressive road construction project and
some never-before-seen equipment. The construction site was home to a
24-foot-wide, 1,000-pound rolling tube of steel, and a real head-turner it was.

For the ditch liner project, Curb Roller Manufacturing created a custom flume
drum with eye-catching dimensions: 24 feet wide, 1,000 pounds, and 52 inches in
diameter. Each wing section of the drum was 8 feet wide, with an 8-foot flat pan
section in the middle.

The Nature of the Problem

The onramp that connects Cookingham Drive to I-435 appears to the naked eye to
be a standard ramp, but the positioning of the onramp and the surrounding area
were causing headaches for the Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT). A
field that runs parallel to the ramp often produces significant rainwater runoff
that makes its way onto the onramp. In a usual case, rainwater and subsequent
runoff don’t pose huge issues for highways and ramps, but this was a different
story.

Sedimentary dirt and debris filled the south side of the ditch and the onramp.
As the ditch filled up with sediment and dirt carried by the runoff, the
material would spill over onto the south lane of the onramp. This presented
slippery, dangerous situations for drivers heading for the interstate at 55-60
mph. To combat the issue, MoDOT maintenance crews used heavy-duty equipment to
tackle the buildup, closing the onramp every few years to clear the ditch and
roadway with skid steers, track hoes and several haul trucks. Last time they
cleaned it, they shut down the onramp for two days to complete the cleaning.
This method solved the problem temporarily but created headaches for drivers and
a lot of unnecessary work for crews.

MoDOT tried incorporating pre-shaped paved flumes to carry the rainwater, but
the flumes filled up just as quickly as the unpaved ditch and required just as
much cleaning. MoDOT contemplated installing a rock-based lining, but research
showed the quickly accumulating rainwater would likely carry the rocks away.

MoDOT continued to search for a viable solution to address the maintenance
problem and finally found a permanent answer as part of a large concrete
patching job on the roadway.

Curb Roller Manufacturing specifically designs products to get workers off their
hands and knees into a more comfortable concrete pulling position. If the crews
had done the whole project by hand, there would have been an increased potential
for neck, knee and back injuries along the way.

Finding a Unique Solution

In the early summer of 2019, Realm Construction was subcontracted to patch the
concrete on Cookingham Drive and the onramp to I-435. Manager of Field
Operations Russ Stark and his team specialize in concrete patchwork. They
completed that portion of the job and then sat down to find a way to tackle the
ditch liner, which was a concrete project they were less familiar with.

Stark, who has worked for Realm for more than 11 years, needed to find a
solution that would stay within the budget and the assigned time frame. The
mission was to essentially line the ditch with concrete, and Stark initially
only knew of one conventional method to accomplish it.

That method was to form the ditch in a sectional approach. This could be done
either by pouring the bottom concrete and pulling a tube or screed up by hand,
or pouring it transverse — coming down the slope to the bottom and then back up.
Crews would pour one 20-foot bay, skip a 20-foot area, pour another 20-foot bay
and so on. The next day, after the bays dried, crews could fill in the
alternating empty areas.  While this method is inexpensive and proven, it is
time consuming and physically taxing.

“If we approached this project the conventional way, we’d only be able to pour
about four bays a day, which is 80 feet of ditch liner a day,” Stark said. “At
that rate, the project would have taken us 15-20 days. I knew we could do it
quicker than that.”

Stark’s ultimate solution would include an approach that might end up with a
higher initial equipment cost. But could that additional investment in equipment
end up saving him time and money?

Stark proposed commissioning a large metal flume drum from Curb Roller
Manufacturing. The company is known for their hydraulic- and battery-powered
concrete roller screeds, but also manufactures custom-sized rolling drums. The
drums are commonly used for pouring streets, medians, v-gutters or flumes, and
while the company prides itself on creating custom solutions, this drum exceeded
the size of any created in the past.

“I had seen a ditch liner drum on a different project a year prior and asked the
contractor — Clarkson Construction — who made it,” Stark said. “It was only
about 14 feet wide and I knew we’d need something nearly double that size. But I
thought it could work.”

Curb Roller Manufacturing, based out of Fairview, Kansas, has been serving all
industries from landscapers to government entities for more than 10 years. When
Realm Construction approached them with the custom request, they were eager to
engineer a solution.

The contractors were also ready to begin the project, but delivering an
oversized custom drum to a jobsite had its obstacles. First, Stark had to get
approval from MoDOT to implement this unique equipment and process. He presented
his case, highlighting the potential for a better finished product and a
significantly improved timeline.

Matt Daulton, MoDOT resident engineer for the project, reviewed Stark’s proposal
and approved with one stipulation — using the Curb Roller couldn’t increase the
overall cost of the project.

“We try to encourage innovation on every project,” Daulton said. “I had never
seen something like this, but our contractors and manufacturers in the industry
often have new ideas and the best answers. So we were open to it.”

After gaining clearance from MoDOT, Stark and his team had to work with the
grading & excavation subcontractor who was preparing the ditch. The original
design of the ditch, before implementing the Curb Roller idea, included varying
widths and a flat bottom. This approach would save grading and excavating costs
on a traditional concrete project, but the Curb Roller method would require a
consistent width to successfully lay concrete. Stark was convinced that the
extra cost in grading and excavating would make up for itself in the time
savings down the line.

“I knew that this would create a more uniform product, which would be easier for
MoDOT maintenance to clean out,” Stark said. “The original cross section of the
ditch had varying slope widths and lengths through the entire 1,600-foot-long
ditch liner. So we had to get the grading team to adjust and create a consistent
canvas for the concrete.”

While the grading and excavating teams prepared the base, Stark worked with Curb
Roller Manufacturing to design and craft the perfect flume drum.

Curb Roller Manufacturing delivered the drum to the jobsite just five days after
the design was approved by the contractor.

Here Comes the Drum

Kraig Pyle, general manager of Curb Roller Manufacturing, worked with Stark
throughout the planning process. While the company specializes in custom drums,
they’d never designed something of this magnitude before.

“We had designed drums as long and as large in diameter, but never with this
kind of combination,” Pyle said. “This was so impressive because it had such a
large pan and slope wings. We know the capabilities of our product and we were
confident taking on this challenge. We knew that with a few adjustments and
alterations, we could pull this off and save the contractor time and labor.”

Stark officially submitted his order to Curb Roller Manufacturing: a 24-foot
wide, 1,000-pound hollow rolling flume drum. He calculated the required slope of
the sides of the ditch according to MoDOT requirements. Each wing section of the
drum was 8 feet wide, with an 8-foot flat pan section in the middle. The drum
was 52 inches in diameter with 4:1 backslopes. Since the ditch liner itself is 2
feet deep, they achieved a 25-degree rise by implementing a 1-foot drop for
every 4-foot run.

Pyle sent Stark a design of the product, which he promptly approved. The company
delivered the drum to the jobsite just five days later.

Time to Rock & Roll

By the time the drum arrived on the jobsite, the Realm Construction team had
prepared the first section of the pour with forms, fabric and reinforcement. Not
knowing exactly how quickly the pours would go or how much progress they’d make,
the team prepared 500 feet of forms.

Also onsite was a Takeuchi TL10 compact track loader that provided hydraulic
power for the spinning drum, as well as a Telebelt telescopic belt conveyor to
place the concrete. The team modified the conveyor to lay the concrete in front
of the tube.

They began pouring the concrete — a MoDOT hand-finished paving mix with a
predetermined slump calculation.

“We were allowed to go to 5-inch slump, but we aimed for a 3.5-inch slump
because of the slope,” Stark said. “We had more of a problem getting it too wet,
which is ok because we just let it dry out.”

The wet concrete problem — which can be common on projects like this — wasn’t
the only issue during the first day of pouring.

“We got the flume all set up and moving it forward wasn’t a problem,” Stark
said. “The only problem seemed to be related to the power source. The drum was
binding up, but Kraig was on-site and he was determined to figure out a way to
make it work efficiently.”

The team poured 60 yards and had to stop to address the power source.

“A very simple problem quickly became apparent,” Pyle said. “We had improperly
sized the control valve to the upsized motor to handle the larger drum. This
restriction in the smaller valve was causing the loader to overheat. A larger
prototype valve we had in the works reduced the back pressure and restriction,
alleviating the overheating that was happening.”

After Pyle figured out a solution for the power source issues, Stark and his
team had to configure the dispersing of the material. This process presented its
own set of issues.

“We tried placing the Telebelt chute right in front of the tube to move the
material forward,” Stark said. “When it was right up against the tube like that,
it ended up spraying the guys like crazy. We moved it ahead and found that the
ideal spacing was about 6 feet ahead of the drum. This allowed the majority to
be placed onto the bottom and the excess fed up onto the sides. Not only did
this work better, but our guys were a lot happier because they didn’t go home
looking like a sidewalk.”

Once everything was dialed in and set to the perfect speed, distance and power,
the Realm Construction team was on a roll. They poured 400-450 linear feet of
concrete a day for the next three days, with virtually no roadblocks or issues.
Despite the delays near the beginning of the project, they completed the project
more than a week ahead of schedule.

By utilizing the Curb Roller custom drum, the contractor estimates a cost
savings of 40 percent and more than 740 man-power hours saved on the project.

Saving Time & Physical Effort

By implementing the Curb Roller method instead of one of the traditional
hand-pouring options, the crews finished early and spared themselves the
physical fatigue that would have resulted from doing work on their hands and
knees.

If the crews had done the whole project by hand, there would have been an
increased potential for neck, knee, and back injuries along the way. Since
concrete work is already a physically taxing job, Curb Roller Manufacturing
specifically designs products to get workers off their hands and knees into a
more comfortable concrete pulling position.

Running the Curb Roller drum involved two workers pulling and guiding the drum,
a few guiding the concrete to the correct place, and a few finishing the
concrete with channel mops. While the drum is designed to bring the “cream and
fat” to the surface and push aggregate down, it still required a final hand
screed to seal the concrete.

By completing the project in essentially three pours, the team was not only able
to save time and physical labor, they also created a higher-quality product.
With a traditional method and many sections of concrete pours, dowels would have
been required in each bay to tie them back to one another. While incorporating
dowels creates a sturdy project, it’s certainly not as uniform or smooth as the
three-pour approach with the Curb Roller.

“If they’d done this by hand, the quality and consistency goes way down,”
Daulton said. “Since they did it in three large pours, it created a monolithic,
uniform product.”

Savings Upon Savings

With a traditional method, the process could have cost roughly $60,000 in labor.
On a 15-day project with a 10-man crew costing roughly $400/day per worker, the
cost is significant. With the same calculations on the Curb Roller six-day
custom drum method, the labor cost equates to roughly $24,000 — a 40 percent
savings in cost and more than 720 hours of saved man-power.

While there were additional costs throughout the project — purchasing the custom
drum, renting the Telebelt, etc. — Stark says they still ended up under budget
on the project.

“Everyone involved came out on top,” Stark said. “MoDOT got a higher-quality
product in less time and with less traffic disruption. We saved time and money
on the overall project, making it a more profitable venture. And Curb Roller had
the opportunity to test the limits of their drums.”

Quite the Sight

On a stand-out project such as this, it’s no surprise that everyone involved was
curious about the process. Workers, supervisors and even those driving by were
spotted taking photos or video of the impressive setup. All of the contractors,
manufacturers, and MoDOT people involved kept a close eye on the project and
were impressed with the equipment throughout.

“This was a real partnership, and we were more than pleased with the end
result,” Daulton said. “We’ve worked with Realm Construction in the past, so I
trusted their judgement when Russ said he had a new idea. We got a better final
product, and they were able to decrease their cost and share some of that with
us.”

The MoDOT maintenance team perhaps benefits most from the final product, since
it makes their cleanup efforts a much simpler job. The team uses a skid steer to
clear the ditch after every significant rainfall, and best of all it doesn’t
require any lane closure or traffic disruption.

The project showcased everyone’s ingenuity; it highlighted MoDOT’s judgement,
the contractor’s ability to think outside the box, and the manufacturer’s
high-quality product. All parties agree, this project was a win-win-win.

About Curb Roller Manufacturing

Curb Roller Manufacturing has been the world leader in shaped concrete roller
screeds for more than 10 years. With high-quality products for everyday concrete
work, Curb Roller’s ergonomic machines not only make it easy to shape standard
curb, gutter, and sidewalks, but also flume, v-gutter, swale, and other unique
shapes. Their flagship product, the award-winning CRM4000 Curb Roller, opened
the door for additional products like the Hydra-Screed and the battery-powered
Batt Screed and corded Eel Screed. For more information: Curb Roller
Manufacturing, 112 South Main St., Fairview, Kan., 66425; 785-467-3132;
info@curbroller.com; www.curbroller.com; or on Facebook.

 * TAGS
 * comfortable concrete pulling position
 * concrete work
 * CS0121
 * Curb Roller Manufacturing
 * dowels
 * ergonomic machines
 * hands and knees
 * Kraig Pyle
 * Missouri ditch liner industry
 * MODOT
 * roller screed
 * Takeuchi TL10
 * Telebelt
 * Telebelt chute
 * Time & Physical Effort
 * transportation
 * Workers

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