Roadways are built to facilitate vehicular travel. However, depending upon usage density, base conditions, temperature variation, moisture variation, and/or physical age, the surface of the roadways can eventually become misshapen, non-planar, unable to support wheel loads, or otherwise unsuitable for vehicular traffic. In order to promote continued use of the roadways, machines known as “road reclaimers” are employed to rehabilitate the roadways. A road reclaimer pulverizes the surface of the roadway and mixes the pulverized material with the underlying base to stabilize and reshape the roadway. The road reclaimer can also add asphalt emulsions or other binding agents during pulverization to enhance particular properties of the roadway.
A road reclaimer typically includes a frame quadrilaterally supported by tracked or wheeled drive units. The frame provides mounting for an engine, an operator's station, and a reclaiming drum. The reclaiming drum, fitted with cutting tools, is rotated through a suitable interface by the engine to pulverize the roadway.
In a typical configuration, multiple cutting tools extend from an external surface of the reclaiming drum in a spaced apart non-repeating checkerboard configuration. Each cutting tool includes a dedicated flighting that is welded to the reclaiming drum, a mounting block that is connected to the flighting, and a cutting bit that is held within the mounting block. During operation, the reclaiming drum is rotated to drive the cutting bits into the roadway surface and fragment the surface, and the flightings are pushed through the fragmented material to break the fragmented material into smaller particles. An exemplary road reclaimer is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,893,677 of Haehn et al. that issued on Apr. 13, 1999.
Although effective, operation of a conventional road reclaimer wears down the mounting blocks and flightings of the reclaiming drum. Historically, the mounting blocks and flightings have been protected from excessive wear by way of paddles located at leading edges of the cutting tools. The paddles are welded to individual flightings to deflect material away from the flightings and mounting blocks. In this configuration, the paddles themselves function to pulverize the fragmented material, while also acting as sacrificial wear components.
Although conventional paddles may be effective, they may also be costly, difficult, and time-consuming to replace. Specifically, after a period of use, each paddle must be cut off of the flighting and a new paddle must be welded in its place. This service is generally performed in a service facility and often results in extensive downtime of the road reclaimer. As material impacts the paddles during operation, failures may occur as the joints between each paddle and the flighting to which it is connected loosen and allow relative movement between the paddle and the flighting. Any loosening of the connection between a paddle and a flighting may result in failure as a result of the removal of the preload that was originally placed on fasteners joining the paddle to the flighting. This loosening of the connections may be aggravated by side impacts on the paddle during a reclaiming operation, which impart shearing loads on the fasteners joining the paddle to the flighting.
The paddles and reclaiming drum of the present disclosure solve one or more of the problems set forth above and/or other problems in the art.