The Sumner County Highway Department in Gallatin, Tennessee is making good use of asphalt emulsions for their roadwork. They are responsible for maintaining roads throughout the county. Repairing potholes is a major task. They have found that patching potholes with a mixture of gravel and asphalt emulsion is an economical alternative to using HMA (hot mix asphalt).

They use a special emulsion tank to heat and store RS2 emulsion at their yard. The tank loads it into their truck equipped with a ROSCO RA-300 Patcher. The truck goes to the roads in need of repair. The patcher mixes gravel with the emulsion. It then blows out any water in the potholes and sprays mix into the holes. No compaction is required. Its fast, easy and cost effective.

Heatec 6,000 gallon tank for asphalt emulsion in Sumner county, TN.		Electrical panel meets NEMA 4 requirements to keep out windblown dust and rain, splashing water & hose-directed water.

Asphalt emulsions are widely used as an alternative to HMA. Some county and DOT agencies use asphalt emulsion for restoring road surfaces. A distributor truck with a spray bar simply applies the liquid emulsion over a thin layer of gravel to provide a new surface. A variety of other techniques are also used with asphalt emulsions for repair and preventative maintenance.

Heatec designed and built the emulsion tank specially for use at county and DOT facilities. The tank is heated electrically. Electric heat is an ideal way of heating materials at facilities where hot oil heating is not available. The tank has four 1-KW electric blankets affixed to the bottom of the tank and has heating cables on its valves. Three inches of fiberglass insulation minimizes heat loss.

Loading and unloading valves are heated by heating cables.

The heating blankets are readily accessible so they are easy to replace if that ever becomes necessary. The tank holds 6000 gallons of material and has a gauge board to indicate how much material remains in the tank.

The blankets maintain the emulsion at a temperature set by the operator. A temperature controller senses emulsion temperature and switches the blankets on and off as required to maintain the set temperature.

A mixer/agitator is installed in the tank and is powered by a 3 hp electric motor. Legs on the tank raise it 8 feet above the ground enabling the emulsion to offload by gravity into the patcher truck.

For more information on tanks for storing asphalt emulsions, contact Heatec at 1-800-235-5200.