Barber Greene - History of The Asphalt Paver

History of The Asphalt Paver

On November 15, 1930 in Aurora, Illinois Harry Barber made a sketch of a revolutionary new machine that was to become the Asphalt paver. Harry asked a patent attorney named W.R. Chambers to come from Chicago and see this new machine and so began the development of the modern asphalt paver. Now an entire industry has been developed from this invention. The machine featured mixing and placing in a single operation and was exhibited for the first time at the 1931 Road Show in St. Louis. Barber realised that the mixing and placing operations needed to be separated and the mixing section became the line of Barber Greene asphalt plants and the placing section became the Barber Greene paver line.

The early pavers used screw conveyers to distribute the mix in front of a screed that tamped the mix and this was suitable for coarse-graded mixes, however on dense-graded mixes that were common on city streets the machine experienced problems including surface imperfections. In 1933 Barber's son Ashley (Ash) joined the company and in the same year the independent floating screed was developed. This screed along with the tamper bar that permitted uniform material density of the finished surface were the two key features that allowed the machine to become successful. Early pavers had a hopper which material was dumped into and spread by an auger. The floating screed was supported on runners that travelled on the prepared base material.

On April 10, 1936 the U.S. Patent Office issued the initial patent number 2,138,828 "Machine for and process of laying roads" and on December 6, 1938 this patent was granted. By 1934 production had started on the model 79 paver which featured a feeder to move the material to the auger and 2 years later in 1936 the 879 model was introduced. By 1940 this machine was upgraded to the 879-A Model and this machine was the standard asphalt paver around the world until the mid-1950s. These basic features that were introduced by Barber Greene have been incorporated into most asphalt pavers in use today (1987).

Other Barber Greene firsts include:

• First Synchronized tampers (1945)
• First paver on rubber crawlers (1958)
• First hydraulic paver (1959)
• First automatic screed control (1960)
• First hydrostatic paver (1970)

Barber-Greene also made a successful line of trenching machines, asphalt batch plants, asphalt drum mixing plants, and road recyclers called Dynaplanes.

Barber Greene was purchased by Astec Industries of Chattanooga, Tennessee (owner of the Roadtec line of Asphalt pavers and manufacturer of their own product-line of asphalt plants) on the first of January 1987. Soon thereafter, Astec discontinued the manufacture of the Barber-Greene designed asphalt plant, retaining their own existing plant products instead. The Barber-Greene offices and manufacturing plant in Aurora, Illinois were closed.

Roadtec asphalt pavers were based on the European design concepts but had been adapted to suit American requirements. Eventually Roadtec was spun off as an independent company and the Barber Greene paver was purchased by Caterpillar Inc. to form the basis of their Asphalt paver line.

BGP Pavers

In a similar fashion to Blaw-Knox Asphalt Paver company, Barber-Greene developed certain regional specific machines to suit the English market. Some time after, Barber-Greene was purchased by Caterpillar in the US. Another company named BGP began marketing a line of machines in the U.K. These machines carried similar design cues and model identification to the old Barber-Greene models and have since undergone several upgrades and BGP continues as an independednt company.