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the mightiest s03e02
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00:05In a world of dangerous work, modern machines and technological advancements can mean the
00:13difference between life and death on the job. From deep woods timber tightens to mills of
00:21molten metal and rugged road warriors, mighty machines are doing their part to keep humans
00:28safe while getting the job done. Welcome to the forest, where the deadly work of cutting,
00:43stripping and transforming towering trees into timber is done by a team of powerful machines.
00:57Timber isn't just raw material, it's the backbone of hundreds of other industries around the world.
01:04When I see a tree, I'm sizing it up to see what best I can get out of that tree.
01:10These backwood goliaths are tackling one of the most dangerous jobs on the planet.
01:18It's smooth. Perfect.
01:23Getting a tree from the forest and into the mill is no easy task.
01:29In any terrain, anything can happen. You've always got to be on your toes,
01:32you've always got to watch where you're going.
01:34Machines like the feller buncher, forwarder and harvester make the job look simple.
01:41I do some of the work, but the machine does most of the work to do it.
01:45But this job is anything but simple.
01:49This block we're in today, it's about a thousand acres. Working in this environment, harvesting trees,
01:55getting the bushes ready for logging operations makes it very, very challenging.
02:00The trees aren't just sitting in front of you, so we're looking for a good quality,
02:04gently pine trees, spruce, jock pine, red pine. While the work of bringing down timber is highly
02:11mechanized now, it all started with axe-wielding lumberjacks.
02:21Who put their lives on the line each day to make it happen.
02:26Logging has always been a death trap. You're dealing with huge, unpredictable trees and rough terrain.
02:32Growing nasty weather and heavy machinery, and it's no wonder it's still one of the deadliest jobs out there.
02:39Forestry has been part of civilization from the earliest times.
02:43And so has the risk that comes with harvesting the timber that builds our world.
02:49Initially humans took just what they needed, but as the European colonies expanded, so did the demand for lumber.
02:55Back then, it was all about getting as much wood out as fast as possible. Occupational health and safety
03:03was almost non-existent. Workers relied on their instincts and what more experienced loggers taught them.
03:10After World War II, machines took over. Chainsaws replaced hand saws. And harvesters did the work of entire crews.
03:21The main hazards in the original days was you got a man out in the bush, a chainsaw.
03:26Cutting trees, limbing trees, had felling hazards, overhead hazards.
03:31Increased productivity brought increased risks. Now it wasn't just trees that crushed people, but heavy machines too.
03:40The chainsaw led to a dramatic increase in amputations and deaths.
03:45These horrific accidents provided the evidence necessary to create the vital safety standards we strive for today.
03:53But machines dramatically improved safety.
03:57Today, these woodland warriors are evolving, becoming smarter and stronger.
04:17This mega machine, the Feller Buncher, is 28 tons of timber terminating power, stretching five meters long and three and
04:27a half meters tall.
04:28It's like a bulldozer crossed with a tank. This is the Feller Buncher.
04:37It's the machine that cuts the tree, picks it up, grabs it, carries it around, puts it down wherever you
04:43want.
04:46Imagine 10-paul bunions rolled into one steel giant. This beast can bunch five trees in one go, depending on
04:57their size.
04:59With a machine like this, you could easily do five to eight hundred trees in one day.
05:04Put them down nicely, easy. Right there. Perfect.
05:09That's the equivalent of 12 men with chainsaws and axes working an entire week. It's a game changer.
05:20It gathers trees in its massive metal fist, like grasping blades of grass.
05:26This is what they call the big fingers. So these fingers have all the power.
05:29Once you cut a smaller tree, you close with both sets of fingers.
05:34The small fingers will stay closed and you can open these ones up.
05:38And what happens is the small fingers will hold the tree in place and you can cut more than one
05:41tree at a time.
05:42These ones will open up and grab the next tree.
05:44The fingers open wide, the saw spins into action, and the head closes in on the target.
05:51Within a few seconds, it's on to the next conquest to repeat the process.
05:57Fingers are connected to the boom, which does all the lifting work.
06:00It picks it up, swings side to side, and you can put it down wherever you want.
06:07Down he goes!
06:11The mammoth nine-meter boom arm is longer than a city bus and can lift nearly six tons.
06:18That's as much as a fully loaded truck trailer.
06:22Add a 360-degree swing, and this steel giant can grab trees from any angle while locked in a single
06:29position.
06:35This is what they call a hot saw.
06:39Once you turn it on, it's going continuous at a very high rate of speed.
06:45It doesn't stop until you turn it off.
06:49In the past, a lumberjack was only as good as his axe.
06:53A modern logger is just as reliant on their saw blade.
07:00This over-meter-and-a-half-wide circular cutter spins at almost 1,200 rotations per minute.
07:07The equivalent of over 300 kilometers per hour.
07:12Meaning the blade can slice through just about any tree trunk like a flash of lightning.
07:19So let's see how long it takes to stop that blade. The blade's turned off.
07:28Not so much momentum that blade has, even when it's turned off.
07:31But all that work can bust up the blade and lead to catastrophe.
07:43The saw is the most dangerous part because there's obstacles in the woods.
07:47Like there's stones and stuff. Sometimes you will hit a stone.
07:49These are just carbide teeth.
07:51If you do hit a stone, sometimes the teeth will break and they'll fly.
07:55They could fly up to 500 feet.
07:57You don't know where they're going to go.
07:58You can't see them going that fast.
08:00Even on the boom, it says stay back 500 feet, and that's the reason why.
08:05This forest crusher plows through the trees with a 284 horsepower engine.
08:11About the same as a modern day muscle car.
08:15But out here, the machine takes a bigger beating than a racer does on the track.
08:23Every morning I have to do a circle check.
08:26One thing I do is I check the oil.
08:27Oil dipstick is right here.
08:28You take it, you pull it out.
08:30You take a look at the level.
08:31Level's good.
08:32And over here is the air breather.
08:34Where it takes the engine needs fresh air to operate.
08:38Sucks a lot of dirt in there.
08:39The machine's got to work really hard to get that air sucked through that filter.
08:42If the filter gets plugged, then the exhaust will turn blue.
08:45You'll lose a lot of power.
08:46You'll know.
08:51Once the trees come down, they're sliced, diced, and ready for the mill.
08:55It's built by a 28-ton tree slayer known as the Harvester.
09:01Its role is to strip every branch from the trunk and cut timber to the exact size needed.
09:09I don't know what's better, the strip it or the rip it.
09:13So this machine's so powerful.
09:15It can pick up an entire tree and at least pick it up and move it where I want it.
09:19It can probably pick up a few hundred pounds.
09:21It feels like I can move pretty much the world with it.
09:24It's anything I can fit that head around, I can probably move it.
09:28The Harvester has turned timber extraction into an oversized game of pick up sticks.
09:34Its colossal eight-meter boom arm grabs trees with savage power
09:39as the massive mechanical saw head rips and chops them to size in seconds.
09:47Wheels pull the tree through the head's enormous two-meter grasp,
09:52like threading a giant needle with a telephone pole.
09:56Traveling at five meters per second, each of the four delimbing blades trim the branches from the trunk.
10:05It grips the wood as it gathers the perfect measurements for the mill.
10:11Finally, the 75-centimeter cutter slices the trunk into custom lengths.
10:18But this is mostly ideal for big, narrowly timber.
10:22The biggest tree I've ever cut with this is probably around a 28-inch tree.
10:29The operator sets the knife pressure based on the size and what kind of trees they're cutting.
10:34Then SmartTek kicks in and automatically adjusts the pressure to strip off branches.
10:38This keeps the tree's natural protection intact so you don't waste valuable wood.
10:44I like this machine because it takes all the guesswork out of everything.
10:49It does it all for you. It's a pretty smart machine, pretty sophisticated.
10:54Back when machines were purely mechanical, operators had to do everything by hand.
11:00After a few hours, your arms were dead from wrestling the controls.
11:04And if a tired operator missed the lever or made a wrong cut, it could be deadly.
11:12Now, onboard smart systems like GPS, safety kill switches, 360-degree cameras and autonomous navigation keep operators out of the
11:21most dangerous areas and take over tasks so there's way less chance for deadly human error.
11:29But all the tech in the woods still can't outsmart gravity.
11:34I've got to watch out for a dead tree that can break off at any time and come back and
11:39hit me.
11:40So with these bigger trees like this red pine, you have to be careful.
11:43And I've had quite a few come and hit the cow.
11:52Falling trees are a constant hazard when working in the woods.
11:58You need to deal with them immediately and get them off the site.
12:02They're structurally sawdust, a very dangerous tree.
12:08These dead trees have to be cut because they could fall at any time.
12:14You've got to worry about them falling on the cab and possibly damaging the cab and possibly killing you more
12:19or less too.
12:21Cabs like this have reduced fatalities and near fatal injuries.
12:26They're armoured cocoons made of steel and the windows are made from lexin, which is essentially bulletproof.
12:34As stable as the machine looks, they can be rolled over onto their sides if you're not careful in the
12:39rougher terrain.
12:40Once the machine goes over, it can shake you up pretty bad.
12:44The cab is very safe. It's designed to roll over and it's also designed to take a hit from a
12:52fairly big tree.
12:54Basically a steel shell that keeps you alive when the forest is trying to kill you.
13:00Every day is a great day when you're in the bush alone, so it's enjoying nature.
13:07However, all the harvester's hard work means nothing if the timber just sits there.
13:16They've got to get it to the mill. Enter the forwarder.
13:21Forwarder may not look as tough as its timber teammates, but it has a major role, collecting the fell trees
13:26and cleaning up their mess.
13:29Shouldering up to 13 and a half tons of timber at a time, this muscle-bound loader swoops in with
13:36its eight-wheel drive transmission and clears timber to safe ground before it's too late.
13:45The corridor isn't just hauling, it's on a rescue mission. Every log lying in the woods is losing value every
13:52minute that it sits. Weather and bugs can quickly turn that premium wood into waste.
13:59Forestry machines feed a $992 billion global market.
14:05To put that into perspective, all the wood generated around the world could be enough to produce over 100 million
14:12homes each year.
14:13And it doesn't stop there.
14:18Timber isn't just for houses, it's for your packaging, telephone poles, coffee cups and toilet paper.
14:25If timber stops coming down, everything crashes.
14:29Nearly 33 million jobs depend on it worldwide.
14:34And once it arrives at the mill, that timber becomes currency.
14:40We are exporting our product all over the world.
14:44Every one of these logs that you see here in the yard will become a piece of lumber or a
14:48square.
14:49We have some of the best quality in the world.
14:53From untamed wilderness to global marketplace, that's the power of an industry built on timber.
15:00The future of the forest industry looks bright.
15:03We need that for housing.
15:05We need that for everyday supplies.
15:07And the best thing is it is renewable.
15:09It'll always be there for us.
15:11As long as we tend to it, we look after it.
15:13So, you know, the cycle just continues.
15:15These mechanical guardians of the woods are conquering the forces of nature, fulfilling their duty in the face of danger.
15:23They persevere, harvesting tomorrow's world while keeping today's workers alive, one massive tree at a time.
15:38In Iowa, a team of mechanical titans are waging war with fire and fury.
15:47These are no ordinary machines.
15:50They are industrial dragons spewing rivers of molten metal and red-hot steel, harnessing temperatures hotter than the Earth's core.
16:00This is one of America's most challenging industrial environments, where scrap metal is reborn as mighty steel.
16:10And at the center of the superheated steel mill stands the ultimate melting machine.
16:19An electric arc furnace.
16:22A mechanical inferno continuously fueled by scrap metal.
16:30The electric arc furnace is used to melt scrap steel into liquid steel as our iron base to make
16:38new steel plate for our customers.
16:42Sometimes it's a little nerve-wracking, you know.
16:49All right, guys.
16:51175 tons of steel scrap that goes in will get melted down in around 45 minutes and tapped out into
16:58a ladle.
17:00To turn scrap into steel, you need a steady supply of shredded metal to charge the furnace.
17:10So right now you can see these cars right in front of us have what's called shredded scrap.
17:14This plant devours everything from old cars and trucks to appliances and bed frames.
17:22You can take a rail car full of scrap out here, throw it into our furnace and start the melting
17:27process.
17:27And with eight hours, we'll have another rail car on the other end of the plant with a brand new
17:32steel plate product leaving our facility.
17:34The advantage of this process is we are taking recycled steel scrap, making it new, and then we can do
17:41it again over and over, almost indefinitely.
17:45Before electric arc furnaces, blast furnaces were the leaders of the pack.
17:51They're larger, dirtier predecessor that have been used for nearly 2,000 years.
17:58Blast furnaces don't use scrap steel. They rely on extracted raw materials like iron ore,
18:03and are powered by fossil fuels like coke, a byproduct of coal.
18:09And once a blast furnace is running, it can stay burning for up to 10 years.
18:13Though electric arc furnaces have been around since the early 1900s,
18:17they weren't popular because they were expensive to set up and needed lots of electricity.
18:22But today, mills like this one are pushing towards perfecting a CO2-free steel making process.
18:30Where there's a readily available stream of scrap, we can utilize the electric arc furnace
18:36and recycle that steel scrap and melt it into new fresh steel for a new end application.
18:43The electric arc furnace devours 160 tons of scrap metal, like melting down 875 refrigerators every hour.
18:56What makes the scrap steel process so effective and sustainable is that there's no gas and no coal.
19:03What the arc furnace does have is a massive electrode, a glowing hunk of graphite wired with electricity.
19:11It's really bright and I'm looking at the electrode.
19:14Graphite electrodes are crucial for their high thermal and electrical properties.
19:18That allows them to withstand the intense heat without warping or melting too fast themselves.
19:24We're just starting to bore in on our scrap.
19:27To melt down just one ton of scrap steel, the electrode consumes roughly 360 kilowatt hours of electricity,
19:35enough to power a house for 12 days.
19:41Right now it's arcing, the light flashing is the arc.
19:49Once inside the furnace, it's like an electrical storm.
19:53High voltage power blasts through the electrode, forming an electric arc, a lightning-like plasma burst.
20:00The arc becomes the electrical bridge, letting the current leap from the electrode down through the scrap pile,
20:07literally jumping through thin air. The raw energy from the arc turns that steel into liquid,
20:14with 1600 degrees Celsius of unstoppable heat.
20:20This is a 24-hour, 365-day operation. Over time, the electrodes will wear and melt down with the constant
20:27heat of the furnace.
20:29So crews have to be very careful moving these components around as breakage can be costly.
20:35Hey, clean them and don't drop that. Give us a minute, all right?
20:39Every day, these skilled steelworkers are operating and navigating superheated machines.
20:46They can't afford to let their guard down, especially when they're tapping into this fiery furnace.
20:56Putting on my PPE. We're getting ready to go out and tap steel out of a furnace.
21:04It's a layer of heat protection so that we don't get burned.
21:07The electric arc furnace has two taps. One on the side to remove slag or molten waste material that
21:14flows to the top of the liquefied steel. And the other on the bottom is used to transfer the final
21:19mixture of steel to the next machine of the process.
21:33Once it gets up to close to 3,000 degrees, we go out and take temps, check chemistry.
21:39During the tapping process, operators have the chance to get up close and personal with the furnace.
21:48Those heat-resistant suits are all that separate them from the molten steel. One splash and...
21:59When it comes to steel production, safety is paramount.
22:05We're going to get ready to swing the roof off the top of the furnace so that we can inspect
22:08the furnace for water.
22:10Make sure there's no refractory damage and all the internals look good.
22:14The refractory material are the heat-resistant ceramic lining that insulate the furnace from the extreme temperature.
22:21It's like the inner part of a thermos that keeps your coffee hot.
22:25If that protective lining breaks down, the mechanical part gets worn, or water gets into the furnace, that damage could
22:31be catastrophic.
22:33Around the globe, at other steel facilities, accidents have happened. Water and steel can be an explosive combination.
22:44If water gets into a hot arc furnace, it would rapidly vaporize into steam, creating a violent expansion of gas
22:51and a shockwave that could send molten metal and machine parts flying.
23:00We got our safety light, so we're safe to go up on the furnace.
23:06We're looking over the end of the furnace. You really can't get any closer than this.
23:11Melt the gloves, melt the helmet, melt the face shield. The reason we want to make sure that there's no
23:16water inside this furnace,
23:17it creates a reaction and it will blow things all over the place. This is a very dangerous aspect.
23:25Probably one of the more dangerous jobs that we do while we're here to make it.
23:32It's a risky job, but someone's got to do it, to make sure this steel melting machine continues to pour.
23:40As everything looks good, this furnace construction is complete and we can exit the pump on the top of the
23:45furnace.
23:47Now comes the hazardous job of hauling molten metal from the arc furnace across the mill floor to the next
23:55machine in the system.
23:57I operate the hot metal crane, which moves liquid steel around in a ladle, they call them.
24:04Now I'm just going to set this whole ladle up on the caster and then they will open it up
24:10from underneath and let the steel flow down.
24:14Maneuvering this blazing hot liquid steel requires nerves of steel.
24:22The pedal's on my feet, the one on the left is a brake, which stops me from moving north and
24:29south.
24:29The bridge brake, we call it, and the pedal on the right is a siren.
24:37Every precaution must be taken to keep the mill and the crew safe.
24:43The siren gets people's attention. Always looking out for people.
24:49The hulking hot metal crane delivers the ladle full of molten metal to the top of the colossal continuous casting
24:55machine.
25:03This multi-floor machine is so huge, it needs a control room with multiple sets of eyes to oversee all
25:09its moving parts.
25:13Steel flows from the ladle into the top of the structure, where it will travel through basins, molds,
25:20and rollers that will quickly transform molten metal into a single strip of solid steel.
25:30The operator over here is pushing what they call mold, puts it on the nozzle, they just open the slide
25:36gate up,
25:36and he's just letting the operator know that steel is passing through the shroud, so it's open.
25:42The crew opens the tap at the bottom of the ladle to release 1,600 degrees celsius liquid steel
25:49into a holding tank, also known as a tundish.
25:52Right here we have the tundish and a submerged entry nozzle.
25:58As the molten metal leaves the tundish, it flows into a water-cooled copper mold.
26:03When the molten metal meets the 40 degrees celsius walls of the mold,
26:07it forms a solid outer skin, like the hardening of a rock shell of a lava flow.
26:13Steel rollers drag the solidifying metal down, while water jets hammer the outside, cooling it further.
26:21Nearly 23,000 liters of water per minute cool the metal,
26:26while inside this mammoth machine.
26:32We've got the strand coming out of the casting machine, it's approximately 1400 degrees.
26:36These solid steel slabs weigh 41 tons, and are up to 15 centimeters thick.
26:45The slabs are an unfinished product, you can't build a car with them, you can't use them for construction.
26:52So the mystery becomes, what can you do with them?
27:01Inside the rolling metal, mighty metal magicians turn these giant slabs into workable steel.
27:11First up, the reheat furnace.
27:13By the time the slabs leave the casting machine, they've cooled and solidified.
27:18The reheat furnace's job is to get them hot enough again, so they become pliable.
27:24That way, they can be stretched and reshaped.
27:27Think of the reheat furnace as a massive industrial toaster oven, where steel slabs bake for two hours,
27:35reheating them to a softened, red-hot 1300 degrees Celsius.
27:42Hey Joe, you got a slab coming out.
27:46So at this point now, we just want to make sure that it does sit down nicely on the discharge
27:50table.
27:51It's not skewed, it's not hung up on anything.
27:53And once everything's at a home position, the slab will take off.
27:58It's just a lot of things have to go right for the process to work.
28:01No news is good news.
28:03Usually the more steel we put through the furnace, the better day we're having.
28:08A side effect of the reheat furnace is the formation of visible scale,
28:13impurities that form on the surface of it.
28:17We had a slab just now discharge the furnace.
28:20It's going to come through what we call a D scale.
28:24If the scale is not removed, it can really lower the quality of the steel,
28:28and it will decrease the metal integrity. Nobody wants that.
28:31D scale is now blowing 2500 psi, water pressure, and it'll blow off the scale that forms inside the furnace.
28:42Next up, the hot softened steel is rolled out and compressed with four gargantuan rollers
28:49that squeeze the metal with bone-crushing force.
28:54It'll square up the slab, and it'll take its first pass.
28:58First reduction on the mill, about an inch of reduction on the mill.
29:03Several passes through the mill, we'll make our final product.
29:07With 25,000 horsepower, the power of up to 12 diesel locomotives,
29:13this metal flattening beast squeezes the steel until it's longer and wider than a semi-truck trailer.
29:22This mill is very important to the process.
29:24If it's down, we're not making any money, obviously. We're not making any product.
29:28The steckel mill passes the freshly pressed steel to the next machine.
29:36An industrial Edward Scissorhands, where a series of mechanical shears cut the steel to size.
29:43The piece right now currently just come out of the static shear.
29:46He's going to measure that to the correct length to where he'll make the cut.
29:51The work of transforming scrap into new steel never ends.
29:57These heat-resistant, battle-tested monster machines at the mill push out plate after plate,
30:03and keep going to supply the world with steel.
30:07Oh, I like seeing the finished product go out the door.
30:11It feels great doing what we do.
30:13We take all these old used products, turn them into brand new steel.
30:16Everybody out there, they're seeing, they're using steel every single day,
30:20and we're all a part of that.
30:21These industrial titans have revolutionized steel production,
30:25transforming one of the world's most demanding jobs into infinitely safer work,
30:30as they forge the backbone of civilization.
30:43From ripping out the old, to mixing the new,
30:48laying it down and smoothing it up.
30:51Paving new roads is a dirty and dangerous non-stop process,
30:57done by some of the mightiest machines on the planet.
31:00This is the night shift.
31:03Mission, Kansas City Metropolitan Area Highway I-35.
31:12To conquer an interstate highway with fresh pavement,
31:16you need a coordinated collection of heavy-duty machines.
31:23A project like this requires continuous paving,
31:26a method where asphalt is laid without interruption,
31:28using specialized machines to maintain a steady flow of pavement.
31:32And it's all going to happen before the morning commute begins.
31:34The goal of this is that our paving process never stops.
31:38If you stop paving, it can cause a bump in the highway.
31:41It takes a lot of moving parts and a heavily coordinated effort.
31:45If someone isn't paying attention or something breaks down,
31:48and not only shut down the operation, it can be fatal.
31:53Out here in the middle of the night, danger is ever.
32:03The asphalt industry as a whole is an extremely dangerous profession.
32:08You know, the asphalt's coming out of the trucks, 300 degrees, a lot of heavy machinery.
32:13We have pinch points everywhere where people can get ran over by a machine, injured.
32:18Worst case scenario, you know, something we never want to experience is a fatality.
32:23But when your job is in the middle of a speeding highway, things can go sideways fast.
32:39Highway work is one of those jobs that always comes with a certain degree of risk.
32:43Because there's so many uncontrollable factors like traffic and weather,
32:47crews are on high alert at all times.
32:49We're working right in the middle of the highway.
32:51We got traffic coming southbound at 65 miles an hour on the highway.
32:55On the northbound side, we've condensed four lanes of highway down to one.
32:58So the traffic is a lot slower, a lot safer for our people on the ground.
33:04Even with numerous safety strategies in place, the dangers are still there.
33:12It's dangerous work, but so you got to keep your head on the swivel.
33:15You got to watch everything and watch out for your brothers.
33:19I've seen people get hit. I've seen machines get hit.
33:22We've had people throw bottles at us out as they've drove by.
33:25Street races right by us going over 100 miles an hour.
33:28We've had people come flying up in our work zones, and it's adventure every night.
33:33Overnight paving crews risk everything to keep America moving.
33:37And these machines have the crews back when it counts.
33:42Long before paving can begin, a machine with an appetite for destruction gets this pavement party started.
33:51Enter the cold planer.
34:05A cold planer peels away the damaged layers of old pavement down to the healthy layers underneath,
34:12leaving behind a perfectly prepped canvas for fresh pavement.
34:17Weighing in at 34 tons, this beast is ravenous for the road.
34:25Its two-meter cutting drum spins at 118 revolutions per minute with diamond-shaped teeth,
34:32ripping through pavement like a gluttonous predator.
34:38You can tell the machine vibrates and shakes a lot.
34:42That's the constant beating of the teeth tearing up the material below us.
34:48This is very hard concrete with granite in it.
34:51Takes a lot of work to pull up.
34:54These are carbide-tipped teeth, a carbon mixed with metal that creates a way tougher compound
35:00that's teeth.
35:01They can be spaced differently depending on what they're ripping off.
35:05So each tooth doesn't take all the punishment.
35:09The mill has a drum with about 200-plus teeth, spinning, rotating, chipping away at the concrete surface.
35:17That drum is then loading it up into a conveyor chamber, going out into the dump truck.
35:24With all those teeth tearing up the rug, this gladiator needs to constantly rinse its mouth out to keep crushing.
35:32There are multiple sprayers. There are sprayers over our drum, sprayers in our dust suppression system,
35:38all along our conveyor belt, everything to keep dust to minimal.
35:43Water runs dry, the teeth start breaking, shattering, nothing good. Don't run without water.
35:51They must keep the teeth sharp, or the planer becomes a toothless tiger.
35:57Dull bits mean extra passes, killing productivity as time and cars fly by.
36:04Every night when you're done, you should check your teeth, and I'm looking for any of them that are broke.
36:10Sometimes you get away with not changing teeth, but sometimes you can change them every hour.
36:16There's the broken thing. Now it's all shaved down and broke.
36:20That's how it looks brand new.
36:27A massive 636-horsepower engine with a 1,105-liter fuel tank brings serious muscle and endurance
36:37for ripping up pavement all night long. No other machine could do the job quite like this.
36:53The cold planer lays the literal groundwork for every part of the paving process that follows.
36:59The planer isn't the only thing tearing up our walls.
37:05Mother Nature's brutal impact on pavement is relentless, no matter the time or season.
37:12When snow and rain rains on asphalt, it will cause the moisture inside the asphalt to freeze
37:19under cold conditions. It will expand, debond the material, and then when it thaws out,
37:25it will cause the particles to fall apart. After the planer rips out the old surface,
37:31the material transfer vehicle, commonly referred to as the shuttle buggy, emerges from the darkness
37:37to get the new pavement prepped. The paving starts up there with them trucks delivering the asphalt
37:43into the shuttle buggy. We've got the asphalt truck up here. He's carrying 20 tons of asphalt.
37:48We've got three more asphalt trucks in front of him. The goal is to get this truck in. He dumps
37:54in the hopper
37:55here. Asphalt base is dumped into the 17-meter-long gatekeeper of the paving battalion.
38:04100 percent! People say I'm a winchpin of the operation being up here on the shuttle buggy.
38:12Inside this small but mighty shuttle buggy, unrefined materials, mostly stone, sand,
38:18and gravel, become road-worthy. The shuttle buggy takes the mix out of the dump truck,
38:25puts it in the belly of the machine, and then it remixes the aggregate and the oil,
38:30so everything's combined perfect before it goes into the paver.
38:37Pavement, as hot as 150 degrees Celsius, falls into the tank or hopper.
38:44With an auger, a corkscrew-like blade, it works like a behemoth blender,
38:49violently shaking the mixture down through the system.
38:54The spinning action evens out the temperature and texture of the mix,
38:58before spitting it out into a conveyor belt headed for the paver.
39:02Well, while I'm up here with the conveyors on, it feels like I'm always in a mild earthquake.
39:11The key to laying really good pavement is to keep the paving process moving in perfect sync.
39:17No stopping, no gaps, just one smooth operation.
39:24Before asphalt, American roads were dirt, gravel, and cobblestone.
39:28They got you where you needed to go, but these roads were rough and poorly designed,
39:32leading to the death of up to 40,000 people every year.
39:37Engineers had to come up with a material that could be durable,
39:40hard enough to hold up to the heavy traffic that was to come.
39:44America's desire for freedom of the open world demanded infrastructure that could support multiple
39:49vehicles, carrying multiple people, going multiple directions, and asphalt was the answer.
39:56We do hope to step up the good road programs throughout the United States.
40:00We can turn rivers in their courses, level mountains to the plains.
40:05By the 1950s, President Eisenhower's grand plan called for a nationwide interstate highway system of 64,000
40:14kilometers of highway. Over 10 years, he conquered the nation with pavement.
40:20Today, America is crisscrossed by nearly 80,000 kilometers of interstate highways,
40:26connected to another six and a half million kilometers of roads.
40:34On modern roads, crews are constantly maintaining the empire that keeps our world moving.
40:40The real hero of this process is the paver.
40:45We're ready to go, ready to start paving.
40:49Slow and steady wins this race against time and traffic.
40:55This 20-ton road warrior lays more than seven kilometers of pavement every hour.
41:02How they feed that mix through the trucks and through that material transfer vehicle in front
41:06of the paver and back underneath that screed is absolutely critical to get that smooth ride.
41:12The screed is a heated metal plate that hangs off the back of the paver.
41:16Hot asphalt flows down the hopper to the screed, which smooths it out exactly to the right thickness
41:23as the paper moves forward.
41:27Now I'm too low.
41:28The operator continuously adjusts the screed to change the depth of the pavement.
41:38It's massive, half-meter treads spread its way like snowshoes on fresh powder.
41:44They won't crush the hot asphalt underneath while keeping this metal barbarian steady for flawless pavement.
41:54This is like the cream of the crop right here. In order for you to have a great smooth road,
41:59this is what you need.
42:01But some things still need the human touch.
42:05Even with all the machines that we have out here, it still takes a person with a tool in their
42:10hand to make a road a road.
42:16These are two rollers that are considered breakdown rollers.
42:20They're trying to make it smooth and I'm trying to make it compacted.
42:24And they're doing it with a machine that's aptly named the compactor.
42:30So right now they're making their pass back and they're vibrating the asphalt to get the density that we need.
42:40It can be pretty stressful knowing that I'm the last guy that touches it.
42:44Just because, you know, if there's any imperfections in it, that's the guy that, you know, everyone looks to.
42:50You've got your breakdown who breaks it down and you've got your finished guy who makes it look pretty.
42:57This is what it takes out here. It's heavy machines, asphalt at 300 degrees, dump trucks.
43:03It takes the men and women on the ground to provide a road.
43:07An hour to lay, 20 years to stay.
43:12All right, great job, guys. Thank you to you.
43:15As dawn breaks over the I-35, these steel gladiators return to the shop.
43:21What was once a battle-scarred, crumbling highway is now a flawless foundation for decades to come.
43:33An hour tofill.
43:33You haven't sleep until then?
43:33What was once a battle and you're right?
43:33What happened to doů saat Esto Efra SquadronKing van sådan in the new one?
43:33What did you want to do today?
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