Pavement milling, or cold planning, asphalt milling, or profiling, is the process of removing at least part of the surface of a paved area such as a road, bridge, or parking lot. Milling removes anywhere from just enough thickness to level and smooth the surface to a full depth removal. There are many different reasons for milling a paved area instead of simply repaving over the existing surface. Recycling of the surface is one of the main reasons for milling a road surface. Milling is widely used for pavement recycling today, where the pavement is removed and ground up to be used as the aggregate in new surface.
The Process
Milling is performed by construction equipment called milling machines or cold planers. These machines use a large rotating drum to remove and grind the road surface. The drum consists of scrolls of tool holders. The scrolls are positioned around the drum such that the ground pavement is moved toward the center and can be loaded onto the machine’s conveyor belt. The tool holders can wear out over time and can be broken while milling if highway structures like manholes are encountered while milling. The amount of wear varies with the type and consistency of the material being milled, intervals can range from a few hours to several days.
Specialty Milling
Specialty milling can be used to form rumble strips which are often used along highways. Using milling instead of other methods, such as rolling them in, means that the rumble strips can be added at any time after the road surface has hardened. Another example is to modify the roto-milling head to create slots in concrete slabs for the dowel bar retrofit process. The typical process is to saw cut and jackhammer out the slots for the dowels. Following dowel placement, the slots are then typically backfilled with a non-shrink concrete mixture, and the pavement is diamond-ground to restore smoothness. This special milling process shortens the time to create slots from the traditional method which is labor-intensive.
Asphalt Maintenance from PTG Enterprises
If you want to protect your asphalt and ensure it has a long lifespan, choose PTG Enterprises for your sealcoating and asphalt maintenance needs. We offer commercial concrete, masonry, asphalt installation, repair, and paving throughout Baltimore, Harford, Anne Arundel, Howard, and P.G. Counties. If you are interested in hearing how we can help you, contact us online or give us a call at (410) 636-8777. For more tips and tricks, be sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Google+, and Flickr.