New Teeth Cut Through Pavement Maintenance

From Asphaltpro Staff

The team from Wirtgen Group, a John Deere Company, with U.S. headquarters in Antioch, Tennessee, has released its new Generation Z2 round-shank picks—or milling teeth for those of us in the United States. These cutting tools will be on display in the manufacturer’s booth S2050 at CONEXPO-CON/AGG next month, but here’s some more information about them now to augment the Recycling theme of our February edition.

The Wirtgen team reminded readers that the demands on cutting tools for environmentally friendly cold recycling and efficient soil stabilization are varied, but they include:

• high cutting performance,

• resistance to extreme impacts and

• maximum resistance to wear.

To address those important characteristics, the research and development department optimized the Wirtgen Generation Z2 cutting tools and presented them to industry at BAUMA 2022. Here are some stats and facts from a more recent press release.

The wear plate with the grooved profile—seen in the illustration on this page—is designed to increase efficiency. The newly developed wear plate with a special grooved profile is intended to improve centring and optimize rotation behaviour. This is to ensure that the carbide tip is always ready to cut and give best possible carbide use.

In addition, the grooved profile reduces lengthwise wear of the round-shank pick holder and extends service life by up to 25%, according to the manufacturer.

To assure consistently secure seating of the “tooth” in the pick holder bore, the Generation Z² roundshank picks feature the TwinStop clamping sleeve from Wirtgen. The optimised carbide composition with a higher proportion of cobalt guarantees additional resistance to even the highest impact forces, according to the manufacturer.

The Wirtgen team sees high savings potential for users as it continues to develop innovative cutting technologies. By integrating the technology between machines and high-performance cutting tools, contractors can realize optimized efficiency in everyday working scenarios. The use of the new Generation Z2 round-shank picks further increases operational reliability, according to the manufacturer, which results in higher machine use rates, higher productivity, lower operating costs and greater efficiency.