The major Pacific Highway upgrade in New South Wales is one of the largest road infrastructure projects undertaken in Australia. Connecting Sydney and Brisbane, the Pacific Highway is being upgraded to provide a four-lane divided road from Hexham to Queensland. The work commenced in 1996 and is scheduled for completion in 2020, with approximately 75%, a staggering 493km, of the work having already been completed.
The importance of selecting correctly-sized and shaped rock products in the construction of roads has a major impact on the longevity of the road’s surface.
Recently Lewis Quarry took delivery of a new Powerscreen Warrior 2400 mobile screen to produce three end products all supplied to the Pacific Highway upgrade. This large-scale scalper screen is fitted with a metal apron feeder section to accept heavy-duty feed materials and a highly aggressive triple shaft screenbox with a top deck screen media of 100mm punch-plate and a bottom deck of 40mm mesh. The screenbox is configured at 45° with two weights fitted which gives a steady flow of the feed material across the deck. For the project the -40mm is used for sub road-base while the mid-size material, -100mm to +40mm, is used for drainage rock. Finally, the oversized material, +100 to -300mm, is used for small end gabion rock.
