Hi, I'm Paul Del Rio, from PAIKY. While driving on a smooth asphalt road, have you ever thought about how the asphalt mix is produced? Behind me is an asphalt plant, where stone, sand, and recycled products are combined with liquid asphalt to create an efficient pavement material. It all starts at the stockpiles. Each pile consists of a different sized aggregate, ranging from coarser stone to fine sands. A loader operator hauls stone from the piles to cold feed bins. Each bin holds a different size aggregate. A conveyor below the bins feeds aggregates into the asphalt plant. The plant operator, working in an onsite control room, can adjust how much of each aggregate size is used in the mix. Usually, the aggregate enters a large, rotating drum, with a gas powered burner on one end. The aggregate is completely dried by the burner. Once that happens, liquid asphalt is pumped from the heated storage tanks and added to the drum, where the rotation will mix it with the aggregates. Reclaimed asphalt pavement, or RAP, can also be sent to the drum through a separate cold feed bin and conveyor. Using these recycled materials reduces cost and is friendlier to the environment. A continuous plant, or drum plant uses a drum to dry and also mix liquid binder and aggregates together. It’s the most common type of plant used in the U.S. A batch plant also uses a drum to dry the aggregates but then sends the dried material to a large batch tower and then to a mixing chamber where the liquid binder and aggregates are combined. Once the asphalt is mixed thoroughly and heated it is sent up to storage silos. Some silos are only designed to hold material for a short period of time. Other silos are heated and can store mixes for several days. Some plants will use more silos depending upon the number of different mix types needed. Beneath the silos is the loading area. Dump trucks will receive material and haul it to the paving site. A weight scale is located on the loading ramp in order to discharge the correct amount of mix for usage. Once the truck is loaded, the driver is given the signal to transport the asphalt mix to where it’s needed for safe, smooth, and economical roadway construction.