The Downer Sustainable Road Resource Centre & Asphalt Plant located at Brendale is home to one of the most advanced production facilities in Australia.

The facility has incorporated energy efficient and automated components, allowing it to exceed European standards for similar facilities.

In the counter flow hot recycled asphalt (RAP) dryer, recycled asphalt is fed into a purposed built dryer that uses convection heat rather than a direct flame. This means that the recycled asphalt can be heated to 160 degrees celsius and is not reliant on heat transfer from super-heated aggregates in the same way as standard asphalt plants.

The Ammann HRT plant is therefore capable of producing a 100 per cent recycled asphalt mix or high-quality mixes with 50 to 70 per cent RAP as standard.

The tour will kick off with a video of the manufacturing plant and then move to the asphalt production area and view the stockpile areas of different stone / sand and dust as the base products prior to the production process.

It then moves to the actual production area where the AC is batched explaining the different types of mixes that can be produced and the process behind the scenes.

The group will head to the NATA accredited lab where Downer laboratory staff will give them the run down on compaction, air voids and core testing with a breakdown of the coring process and achieving the results to explain the science around obtaining the final AC results that end up in your QA packs.

The tour concludes with a brief discussion on the paving and rolling process that you would normally encounter onsite.

A small sample of goodies to take away on the day would include TMR MRS up-to-date specifications on Asphalt mixes and Primes and Primer Seals and relevant information on road maintenance as well.