“There was a very high cost to the diamond grinding,” says Danny Simpson, vice president and managing partner, TexOp Construction. “Also, the time it would take to do the diamond grinding was excessively long. We proposed to do the job in a much shorter period of time at a lower cost, but with the same benefit as the diamond grinding, 20 days versus 60 days, giving them exactly the same ride in a third of the time.”

First, both the turnpike authority and the Texas DOT requested a test section. “We did a test project for Texas DOT using the fine-texture drum,” Simpson says. “People came out, took a look and liked what they saw, including the smoothness of the ride and the pattern of the drum. They were skeptical until they saw the process work.”