Concrete paver
Concrete pavers are construction machines that are routinely used, especially in motorway and road construction.
Special applications are the production of taxiways and parking areas at airports, concrete barriers in motorway construction or concrete seals in hydraulic engineering (power plant channels and irrigation channels). So-called slope pavers are also used for the latter.
The term concrete paver is a little misleading, but it is chosen in analogy to the road paver , as this machine does not produce concrete, but processes it or applies it in defined layers on prepared substrates, just as a paver does with asphalt . This is why the device is also called a concrete paver, i.e. the construction machine that produces the concrete pavement for a motorway, for example. In the modern version, in which stationary formwork is no longer used, the device is then called a concrete slab slipform paver.
The almost completely automated process enables very high installation rates to be achieved. The concrete can be installed in one or two layers. Due to the concrete-specific " shrinkage " (decrease in volume when solidifying), joints are cut in the concrete . These so-called dummy joints do not go over the entire thickness of the concrete slab, but are only a few centimeters deep. In the area directly under the joint, several dowels were previously inserted in the fresh concrete in the transverse joints and several anchors in the longitudinal joints to prevent the panels from moving apart.