Robey supplied the parts, but the modification was undertaken by Goodes of Royston. tandem rollers were modified to make a further variant, the tri-tandem, which was a tandem with a third roll, mounted directly behind the rear one. Those made by Robey & Co used their standard steam wagon engine and pistol boiler fitted in a girder frame with rolls and a chain drive to produce a quick-reversing roller suitable for modern road surfaces such as tarmacadam and bituminous asphalt. However, there was also a distinctive variant, the "tandem", which had two wide rolls, one front, one rear. The majority of rollers were of the same basic 3-roll configuration, gear-driven, with two large smooth wheels (rolls) at the back and a single wide roll at the front (in actuality, the wide roll usually consisted of two narrower rolls on the same axle, to make steering easier). Configurations 1925 Robey tandem roller #42693, now owned by the Robey Trust Machines that could do this were introduced in the first decade of the 20th century. The move to asphalt for road construction resulted in the demand for steamrollers that could rapidly reverse so they could roll the tar while still hot. Īveling & Porter refined their product continuously over the following decades, introducing fully steerable front rollers and compound steam engines at the 1881 Royal Agricultural Show. A New York City chief engineer said of one of these, that "in one day's rolling at a cost of 10 dollars, as much work was accomplished as in two days' rolling with a 7 ton roller drawn by eight horses at a cost of 20 dollars a day." The heavier rollers were found to be hard to handle and the weight of the machines was reduced to around 10 tons. Within a year, they were being exported around the world, including to France, India and the United States. It was tested on the Military Road in Chatham, Star Hill in Rochester and in Hyde Park, London and the machine proved a huge success. In 1867, the steam road roller was patented and the company began production of the first practical steam roller – the new machine's rollers were mounted at the front instead of the back and it weighed in excess of 30 tons. This experimental machine was described by local papers as 'the world's first steamroller' and it caused a public spectacle. In 1866 they produced a prototype roller with 3 foot-wide rollers fitted to the rear of a standard 12 nominal horsepower traction engine. The company Aveling and Porter was the first to successfully sell the product commercially and subsequently became the largest manufacturer in Britain. Having failed to impress the British municipal road authorities it was transferred to Kolkata where it continued to work. In Britain, a 30-ton steamroller was designed in 1863 by William Clark and partner W.F. Īn early steamroller was patented by Louis Lemoine in France in 1859 and demonstrated sometime before February 1861. Pictured is the model "Britannia".īefore about 1850, the word steamroller meant a fixed machine for rolling and curving steel plates for boilers and ships.įrom then on, it also meant a mobile device for flattening ground. History Aveling and Porter manufactured the first successful steamrollers. The word steamroller frequently refers to road rollers in general, regardless of the method of propulsion. The key difference between the two vehicles is that on a roller the main roll replaces the front wheels and axle that would be fitted to a traction engine, and the driving wheels are smooth-tired. The majority of steam rollers are outwardly similar to traction engines as many traction engine manufacturers later produced rollers based on their existing designs, and the patents owned by certain roller manufacturers tended to influence the general arrangements used by others. The leveling/flattening action is achieved through a combination of the size and weight of the vehicle and the rolls: the smooth wheels and the large cylinder or drum fitted in place of treaded road wheels. Front view of Aveling and Porter steamroller at the Gangaramaya Temple in Colombo.Ī steamroller (or steam roller) is a form of road roller – a type of heavy construction machinery used for leveling surfaces, such as roads or airfields – that is powered by a steam engine.
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