Aloha! Rockster Impactor Contributes to Sustainability of Hawaiian Paradise
Published: 13/4, 2021
After a long cruise over the Atlantic Ocean, through the Panama Canal, and across the Pacific, Rockster’s mobile Impact Crusher R700S reached the island of Oahu in Hawaii. Arist de Wolff and his team of 25 employees of asphalt paving company Alakona Corp. were very excited about the arrival of their brand-new Austrian crushing plant.
Alakona owns several machines they need for their core business like pavers, rollers, loaders, excavators, slurry, and seal coat applicators. When they searched for a crusher to expand their business, they put their focus on compact machinery below 25 tons, which exactly fits their fleet.
“We are so flexible in terms of processing different aggregates and the material we produce with our crusher is of high value,” says de Wolff. “We also like the fact that the return belt can be turned aside, and we can make another fraction, as well as the fine side belt that can be pulled off. The screen box is also very beneficial as it allows us to produce different material sizes by just switching some screens. There are some options that others don’t have, and we are very enthusiastic about the hydrostatic drive.”
Thanks to this drive system, the performance of the R700S is constantly high, as the hydrostatic pressure always adjusts to the power requirements of the crusher. This leads to a lower diesel consumption per-ton of production as the diesel engine always stays within the optimum speed range.
Using the attached screening system, Alakona crushes asphalt from 24 in to less than 1.5 in (61 cm to 3.8 cm). But that’s not all. In Hawaii, coral shells are frequently found the soil. So, when Alakona works on street construction sites close to the ocean, his team usually excavate coral. Without a screening system, they run a 3 in (7.6 cm) final product, used mostly for landscaping.
Although coral is quite a hard rock with high density, “the crushed material contains less fines than the crushed asphalt, which means we can use it as base coarse for house or concrete paths,” de Wolff adds.
With a screen box and return belt, the Rockster R700S weighs only 22.8 tons and can be easily transported with Alakona’s own flatbed truck without the need of transport permits. This gives them great flexibility in terms of their future plans, to get a foot in the door of contracting business. It also saves them a lot of time and money.
“We are able to crush so many kinds of material,” de Wolff says. “Within four days of training this summer, we crushed RAP, coral, concrete and basalt. There are so many possibilities for a lot of different customers like construction companies, private owners, and of course municipalities.
De Wolff admits surprise that many island customers are hesitant to research, test, and utilize recycled material.
“It needs to be pushed more and people need to understand that this is the future,” he says. There needs to be recycled material especially in construction fields where we could save so much natural resources.”