On July 19, 2018, an EF3 tornado struck Pella, Iowa. It destroyed two Vermeer® manufacturing facilities in a matter of minutes as it spun across the Vermeer Mile.
Once everyone’s safety was established, attention shifted to the rebuilding process. Not just to rebuild what was lost, but to make an investment in the future.
“While that day was a tragic one in the company’s 75-year history, we also viewed it as an opportunity to plan for the journey ahead,” said Doug Hundt, president of industrial solutions at Vermeer Corporation. “Out of the destruction from that day, rose a nearly 500,000-square foot (46,461.5 m2) modern manufacturing space with more than 120 windows to let natural light shine through, as well as several upgrades to our manufacturing and painting capabilities.” According to Hundt, the first horizontal directional drill (HDD) produced in the new Plant 7 facility rolled off the assembly line in December 2020.
Commemorating the past, building the future
With rebuilding projects, it’s easy to focus on the reconstruction process and get excited about the new building that will replace previous facilities. But with a massive project like this one, there was a lot of work that had to be done before the new concrete could be poured or the first wall raised.
For Vermeer, it started with a celebration. Everyone came together to commemorate everything that was achieved in the destroyed manufacturing plants — the thousands of Vermeer machines produced by hundreds of people who worked inside their walls for decades.
After honoring the past, it was time to make way for the future. First, the crews worked to salvage anything from inside the plants that could be reused or recycled. Then the demolition process began. Once the walls of the old facilities were down and hauled off, large pads of concrete had to be pulled up, making room for the new facility.
Unconventional and right for the job
Traditionally on demolition jobs like this, contractors would bring in several excavators with breakers and grapple buckets to help separate rebar. The team at Vermeer decided to take a different approach. They used a Vermeer Terrain Leveler® surface excavation machine (SEM), designed and built just a few hundred feet (m) away from the vacant concrete pad.
“We’ve been producing Vermeer Terrain Leveler SEMs in Pella for almost two decades, but it’s rare that these machines are used in Iowa,” said Hundt. “They are designed for mines, quarries and civil applications in areas where ground conditions are predominantly rock. The large thick concrete pad of the two destroyed buildings gave us the perfect opportunity to deploy a Terrain Leveler SEM right here at home.”
Putting GPS to work
The Vermeer team decided to use a Vermeer T1255III Terrain Leveler SEM with a direct drive drum to mill the concrete.
Before getting started, a cut plan was developed. “The Terrain Leveler SEM uses GPS for grade control and AutoSteer for ease of operation,” said Tyler Sikora, Vermeer application engineer. “So, we surveyed the area, marked the boundaries and loaded the points into a computer program to develop the plan. Then, the information was loaded into the machine, and the T1255III got to work.”
Since the Terrain Leveler SEM was performing from GPS coordinates, the operator (Tyler Sikora) was on-site to observe and monitor each pass while in the cab. “I set the steering line for the machine to follow, and it automatically kept a steady engine load by adjusting the ground speed to achieve maximum production,” Sikora explained. “As an operator, I needed to make a few slight adjustments during the run and to turn the machine around at the end of a pass. It’s very similar to what happens in a typical mining application once the floor of the mine has been brought under control with the GPS plan.”
Unique concrete qualities
Most applications that Vermeer Terrain Leveler SEMs are used for involve cutting solid rock into smaller, uniform sizes. But in this application, the concrete pad was reinforced with rebar. Under that was a packed base that the Vermeer team and general contractor on the project wanted to avoid disturbing, if possible.
“One of the challenges of using excavators with breakers and grapple buckets is that debris is removed in big chunks. That can be challenging to load into truck beds and requires additional sorting before going through a crusher. Also, repositioning excavators will often disturb the aggregates and clay pad the concrete sits on, so additional prep work often needs to be done before new concrete can be poured,” explained Sikora.
To mitigate the risk of damaging the base, the T1255III cut depth was set slightly above where the concrete contacted the base material, reducing the chance of disturbing that subbase below. This not only helped reduce the amount of prep work ahead of pouring a new concrete pad, but also helped keep the cut material cleaner for future use and kept dirt and mud out of the crusher.
Sikora said that the T1255III also did an excellent job handling rebar. “The loading dock areas for the plants were constructed on fairly new 12- to 15-inch (30.5- to 38.1-centimeter) thick concrete, with quite a bit of rebar in it. The cutting process naturally does a nice job of pulling the rebar out and laying it out on top of the concrete so that it can be pulled off and handled before loading up the cut concrete.”
Controlling dust and noise for business as usual
During the demolition process, work throughout most of the other Vermeer manufacturing plants continued, along with meetings and customer visits. “Like on any construction project, we wanted to make sure we could maintain business as usual for our people and customers,” said Vince Newendorp, building project director for Vermeer. “Running several excavators with breakers can be loud and generate a lot of dust. It can be quite challenging to keep that from impacting all the other work on the Vermeer campus.
“But, by employing the Terrain Leveler [SEM],” he went on, “we were able to keep noise levels low. And, since the T1255III that we used is equipped with a dust suppression system, we didn’t have any issues there either.”
Doing the job in half the time
On the concrete demolition process alone, Newendorp and Sikora estimate that the Vermeer SEM did the job in half the time it would have taken using excavators. Milling work took just a little over three days, with minimal disturbance to the base layer material.
Also, since the material from the cut was uniform in size and clean, it could be fed through a crusher more efficiently to be recycled and used for the new pad that Plant 7 sits on today.
Considerations for civil projects
Hundt, Sikora and Newendorp all agree that a Terrain Leveler SEM may not be the first choice for contractors on a demolition project like this one — but, it certainly can do the job efficiently.
So, when do they recommend using a Terrain Leveler SEM outside of mining and quarry applications? Using a Terrain Leveler SEM is an effective alternative to trying to muscle through with breakers on civil projects with rocky ground conditions, and it’s less invasive than using drill and blast methods. In addition, an SEM is a good option on projects with noise, vibration and/or dust constraints.
Contact your local Vermeer dealer if you want to learn more about putting a Vermeer Terrain Leveler SEM to work on your next civil project. And keep in mind, many Vermeer dealers offer rental options on Terrain Leveler SEMs and large trenchers.
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