ICPI Issue 2 2019

of areas that require access using a smaller vehicle. “The vacuum heads and hoses also work well in corners and up against walls where sediment accumulates.” Mr. Otero experimented with different sized vacuum heads that rendered different cleaning levels. “A 24-inch (600 mm) diameter vacuum head that pulls half of the joint material out works well for pavements that are less dirty. But a pavement that has gone five years with no cleaning requires a 6-inch (150 mm) head that pulls most of the joint material out,” he says. The equipment can easily be operated by a two-man crew with minimum training. In fact, he cross trains his employees to handle the restorative maintenance as well as installation to give him flexibility when scheduling work. Moving from Colorado to Minnesota, the six-year effort to develop TYPHOON, a compressed air system to clean PICP and remove joint material, began with Steve Jones, inventor and president of Pave Tech, located near Minneapolis. He discovered effectiveness and simplicity of using compressed air without water to clean joints. “The

Badger Daylighting adapts their equipment with a high pressure spray and vac head that delivers sediment and soil aggregate to one of their trucks in San Antonio, Texas.

compressed air blows the joint material out just as a water pressure based system, but there is no sloppy mess when using air and no loss of surface as one would get from water pressure washing.” The TYPHOON has a rotating wand with nozzles that is attached to a large 115 HP air compressor that focuses controlled, high-pressure air in the joints to remove clogging sediment, debris, and aggregate. It is followed by the PAVEVAC, which is attached to a high-volume high- suction (27 in. or 675 mm of Hg) vac truck or trailer to complete cleaning the joints and surface by removing loosened debris and aggregate from the PICP surface. “A three-man crew can remove silt, debris, and joint material on 1,000 square feet (100 m 2 ) in about an hour,” says Mr. Jones. “It takes us less than an hour to train someone to properly use the equipment.” Training includes how to work with air compressed at 200 psi

(1.4 MPa), a truck-mounted vacuum exerting 27 inches (68 mm) of Hg suction, plus safe operation of hoses. Moving to Calgary, Alberta, the home of Badger Daylighting offers its well-known excavation trucks across Canada and U.S. Known as Badgers or Badger Hydrovacs, they use high- pressure water and vacuum systems mounted on a truck to remove soil and expose buried infrastructure or prepare an area for future work. This daylighting method for utility lines practically eliminates risk of damaging pipes and wires and risk of worker injury associated with hydraulic excavation equipment. The newest innovation for the company is a modification of the vacuum hose that can be used to clean PICP. “Specialized nozzles and cleaning techniques keep the water spray focused on the pavement to act as a high-powered carpet cleaner that removes stains, graffiti,

Before-and-after cleaning surface infiltration rates at a PICP manufacturing site in St. Louis. The infiltration rates were determined using ASTM C1781 Standard Test Method for Surface Infiltration Rate of Permeable Unit Pavement Systems.

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