Paving machine with drop-then-stop dowel bar insertion

Abstract

A paving machine having a medially located dowel bar feeder positioned in front of a dowel bar inserter. The machine has a screw or paddle for spreading the concrete and a front strike-off to allocate a proper amount of unconsolidated concrete beneath the machine. Next in line, internal vibrators are mounted to the machine to perform a preliminary consolidation of the concrete, followed by a screed to meter out a correct volume of consolidated concrete for a finished concrete slab. To the rear of the screed, the dowel bar feeder drops dowel bars in a predetermined pattern on the top surface of the consolidated concrete. The dowel bar inserted is mounted to the paving machine behind the dowel bar feeder and includes a plurality of vibrating forks which descend to engage the dropped dowel bars and insert the dowels into the unhardened concrete. In operation, the dowel bars are dropped and the paving machine is driven forward until the forks are over the dropped dowel bars. The paving machine is then stopped and the forks are lowered to insert the dowel bars into the concrete. A finishing machine is operated behind the paving machine to insert center bars and to produce a final consolidated and smoothed grade in the concrete. The paving machine may be adapted to insert dowel bars for transverse joints in a straight or a skewed pattern. In the case of the straight pattern, all the dowel bars for each transverse joint are dropped at the same time. For the skewed pattern, the dowel bars for each transverse joint are dropped one at a time.