Road Rollers used in Construction and their types

Road Rollers are necessary equipment for road construction because they compress and level materials like gravel, dirt, and asphalt, and they are also called roller compactors.

In general, a road roller consists of a roller body and a metal drum, however, depending on the project, a road roller may have two or three drums. Roller machines are primarily driven by trained drivers, but there are some basic models that require a person to push the roller body to make the surface level.

Road rollers can be utilized in a variety of settings, including waste sites and agricultural projects, although they are most frequently employed for building roads or compact foundations for huge areas.

By exerting direct pressure, road rollers are primarily used to crush, knead, or vibrate loose materials. To ensure that weakly connected foundation materials stay compacted and do not fall free, the rolling technique is performed.

What are the advantages of road rollers?

The advantages of road rollers are:

1. It is easy to operate road rollers.
2. There is hardly any danger in using a road roller.
3. Construction surfaces can be levelled and compacted with a road roller.
4. The roller can handle the entire project's requirements.

Types of Road rollers

For various building demands, many types of road rollers are available. The following discusses each of them.

1. Cylindrical Rollers

An engine powers these cylindrical types of road rollers, which are mostly used for smaller projects like yard projects.

A road roller typically has a conventional cylinder drum and either single drum rollers or double drum rollers.

In addition to consolidating stone into the flat ground, this cylindrical roller works well with surface dressing to create flat and even surfaces.

2. Single drum rollers

Heavy-duty machinery such as drum rollers is used in single drum rollers. There is a giant drum at the front and special tires at the back. Tires with these characteristics are more durable and prevent most flats. Whenever you work on a construction site or on a road, you need these heavy-duty tires. One drum roller has a middle section where the driver sits.

Compaction of surfaces can be achieved with three different configurations offered by modern models. A high level of performance and reliability is ensured by the use of world-class components. Design-for-quality can be seen in the reinforced front scraper, the robust 32 mm thick drum, and the turbocharger with pre-cleaner.

3. Sheepfoot roller

Sheepsfoot rollers are static and vibratory machines used for soil compaction in which a blend of all-fine-grained clay and sand gravel is present. Newer variants may pressurise up to 14 kg per square centimetre and include metal drums with baggage attachments. There are several lug kinds, including clubfoot, prismatic, and spindle-shaped broad bases.

As with smooth-wheeled rollers, the weight of the drum can be increased by adding water, wet sand, or installing pieces of steel. Sheepsfoot rollers are reported to be highly good for compacting heavy clays and silty clays.

In projects involving roads and railroads, these rollers are used. The three main varieties of lugs are clubfoot, prismatic, and spindle-shaped with expanded bases. They can be mobile sheepsfoot rollers with tandem drums, or they can be a single drum that has to be pulled by a tractor. These drums' weight can be increased by ballasting them with water, moist sand, or steel pieces.

4. Tamping or Padfoot rollers

Rollers with lugs of a larger area than sheepsfoot rollers have similar characteristics to sheepsfoot rollers. In addition to their static weights of between 15 and 12 tonnes and a static linear drum load of between 30 and 80 kg/cm, static pad foot rollers are also known as tamping rollers. They are replacing sheepsfoot rollers because of their larger production capacity.

There is a greater degree of compaction achieved, as well as a greater degree of uniform density. Even large lumps can be broken by them at high speeds. Spreading is possible with the rollers equipped with levelling blades. In addition, there are self-propelled rollers with a linear load between 30 kg/cm and 50 kg/cm and weighing around 11.0 tonnes or more. Clay materials with a thickness of 30 cm to 40 cm can be compacted by them.

5. Double Drum Roller

Designed for small repair jobs and large job sites, the modern double drum asphalt roller range features everything from the smallest equipment to the largest.

All of these factors contribute to the maneuverability, operator ergonomics, and safety of the machine, including vibration dampened platforms, swivel seats, and rollover protective structures (ROPS).

To learn more, watch the following video tutorial.

Video Source: RoadPlanet

6. Grid Rollers

The Grid Rollers have a cylindrical steel surface with square-shaped holes formed by a grid of steel bars. Concrete blocks are commonly used to ballast rollers. In general, these rollers provide a high level of contact pressure with minimal kneading.

Typically, they are used in the subgrade and sub-base road construction to compact coarse soils and weathered rocks. Soils with clayey properties, silty clays, or uniformities cannot be used with them.

7. Vibratory Rollers

This vibratory roller has two sets of smooth drums that also produce vibration; one set is located on the front side of the vibratory roller, while the other is located on the rear.

The diameter, length, and weight of both drums are the same, which further increases the vibratory roller's effectiveness.

8. Pneumatic tyred rollers

Providing kneading and sealing capabilities on job sites is the focus of pneumatic tyred rollers. It is necessary for tyred rollers to be flexible in order to perform on asphalt and aggregates.

This type of roller has tyres that penetrate the material more effectively. In order to meet the specific pressure desired for a particular job, the weight of the machines and the air pressure of the tires can be adjusted.

Pneumatic Rollers should be used when constructing roads, especially in order to avoid potholes, road breaks, and road damage caused by poor construction.