Mud. Lots of it. The exposed dirt at the Nissan Manufacturing Plant in Canton, MS, has been soaked thoroughly by the intense rainfalls of May and June 2003. Tom Elmore, president of Eutaw Construction, sees machines sitting idle—not a good sign—at the literally underwater site. Trudging articulated trucks through deep mud is one thing, but trudging them through a lake is another, so only one of his five 35-ton artics is being used on the portion of the site that is not submerged. The other four sit in a row just off the excavation site, ready to work but idled by the new lake at the Nissan plant. Ironically the appearance of this lake means the engineered profile of this site is working perfectly.

“It’s a retention pond,” says Elmore. “We have to excavate about another 160,000 yards out of it to get to the point where it will hold enough water. But we can’t work in this.”

When not completely underwater, Elmore uses a combination of Komatsu 35-ton HM350-1 articulated trucks and a Komatsu PC400LC-6 excavator to topload and remove the existing soil from the site. This combination trumps the scrapers used by Eutaw on flat, dry sites; indeed the articulated trucks wall through wet conditions that scrapers would die in. Matched with the PC400LC-6 (outfitted with a 4-yd. bucket), the HM350s are loaded in five passes and move on their way to the dumpsite, hauling material more quickly and effectively than a scraper in these conditions. This matching of equipment is becoming more common with contractors such as Elmore, and nowhere are its benefits more evident than on the muddy grounds surrounding the new lake.

Eutaw Construction and the Arrival of Nissan
Based in Aberdeen, MS, Eutaw Construction was founded in 1980 by Tom Elmore, who previously held numerous engineering and management positions with Granite Construction Inc. of Watsonville, CA. Elmore spent time in Mississippi on a lock-and-dam project being constructed by Granite on the Eutaw formation and eventually decided to stay and start his own company in Mississippi. Eutaw Construction performs a wide variety of highway and heavy-site work as well as water, sewer, and storm-drain work in Mississippi, and the company is licensed in six states.

In December of 2000, Nissan Motor Company announced it would build a new manufacturing plant in Canton, which boosted the region’s struggling economy by turning it into a new hotbed for construction. In addition to the new construction work, it brought some 18,000–26,000 jobs to the region, spread across the manufacturing plant, commercial properties, and support industries. Eutaw Construction has been participating in this process (and benefiting from it) from the beginning.

“We originally did the clearing and drainage work on this project,” says Elmore. “Then we did Phase B, which included a third of the pad for the building. We also did the grading and drainage work for the parking lot and a relocation of the railroad and a staging area for the railcars.”

Part of the original site work included the excavation of an impressive 1.4 million yd. of dirt in 50 days. Since the site was extremely wet, lime was trucked in to help solidify the ground, enabling Eutaw’s fleet of scrapers to remove the required amount of dirt. However, even the lime couldn’t dry the ground completely, so a 405-hp Komatsu D275A-2 dozer was called in to push the scrapers through—a common yet roundabout way to accomplish the task of removing dirt.

With the prospect of excavating 160,000 yd. of dirt for the Nissan retention pond ahead—not to mention at numerous other wet sites where articulated trucks would prove beneficial—Elmore expanded his equipment fleet. He worked with John Lyle, president of Great Southern Tractor, on the purchase of five Komatsu HM350-1 articulated trucks.

Matching Equipment to Application
Given the application—a wet site with unstable soil conditions due to the above-normal rainfall and the grade of the land—an excavator/articulated truck combination outperforms scrapers in a number of ways.

“The scrapers simply couldn’t stand up out here,” says Elmore. “You’d never get them out, and you’d have to topload them light so they could get around the site.”

“Where Eutaw excels is in its equipment diversity,” adds Lyle. “The type of work they are doing here—there are no haul roads. Articulated trucks will work where scrapers won’t. Eutaw has a good mixture of equipment, and Tom’s scrapers have their purpose, but this isn’t one of them. That’s what led him to the purchase of these trucks. Up until Komatsu came out with this line, we hadn’t seen what we considered to be a ‘good truck.’ The way Komatsu made the commitment to build this truck from the ground up, to give it an extremely long life expectancy, I felt confident in offering it to Eutaw, and so far it has proved to be just that—a good truck.”

At the Nissan site, a PC400-6 excavator loads Eutaw’s 35-ton HM350-1s. Equipped with a 4-yd. bucket, these excavators are the recommended match for a 35-ton truck, filling out in five passes. The benefits of excavators and articulated trucks over scrapers are numerous. “Artics” are more efficient long-distance haulers with a lower weight-per-rated-load ratio, a major factor for Eutaw as the excavated material is hauled to the other end of the Nissan site. As rough terrain and the presence of large rocks can make a scraper all but obsolete, scrapers require dozers to push them in difficult conditions—if they are able to operate at all. Add the extremely wet season in Mississippi to the scenario, and a scraper would sit idle while waiting for the site to dry.

About the Equipment
The HM350-1 artics Elmore purchased drew great interest when Komatsu introduced the line in early 2002 due to the attention to detail and engineering put in by the manufacturer, the benefits of which have been realized by Eutaw. The truck operator speaks clearly as to why he likes driving the HM350-1.

“We had some other trucks out here that were slightly bigger than this one,” says Barry Jenkins, job superintendent. “That was the only difference. These trucks seem to go places where the others didn’t, and we’ve got an uphill pull all the way [out of the retention pond]. These trucks just come and go like it’s nothing. The cab is really comfortable, and [these trucks] drive like a dream.”

Outfitted with a 389-hp Komatsu SAA6D140E-3 engine, the HM350-1 can haul a 35-ton payload at 34 mph. A continuously oil-cooled multiple-disc retarder allows for deceleration without frequent use of the brakes, permitting safe travel at higher speeds, even when traveling down long, steep slopes like those surrounding the pond. The braking system is fully sealed for protection against contaminants, such as water and mud, making it more reliable and responsive and giving it a long service life. Even in rough conditions, the front and rear hydropneumatic suspension system ensures a smooth ride, critical for most articulated truck applications.

The ability to wall through even the wettest, toughest conditions can be attributed largely to the design of the Komatsu Advanced Transmission with Optimum Modulation Control System. The HM350-1’s six-speed, fully automatic transmission selects the appropriate gear based on vehicle speed, engine rpm, and chosen shift position. Even sensing and taking into account whether the body is full or not, this allows for powerful acceleration and smooth downshifting. This system is a proven success for Eutaw as it has put roughly 1,400 hours on each HM350-1 over the course of the last year.

“These trucks can bust through [tough conditions] every bit as good as the others we tested, if not better,” says Elmore. “They seem to be quicker too. We’re satisfied with them so far.”

Not so new to the Eutaw Construction fleet are the PC400-6s being used at this and many others of its sites throughout Mississippi and Alabama. Used to topload the articulated trucks, Eutaw has put nearly 4,800 hours on the PC400-6 at the Nissan site in just two years.

A machine used throughout many sectors of the construction industry, the PC400LC-6 has been a constant workhorse for many companies like Eutaw. On top of the 306-hp Komatsu SA6D125E-2 engine, the excavator features the patented HydrauMind hydraulic-control system, offering load-sensing and pressure-compensated valves that automatically adjust to each working application. Comprising closed-center, load-sensing valves, the system reacts in direct proportion to pressure applied by the operator to the controls, improving responsiveness for easier fine-control and lifting operations.

“The PC400LC-6 is a good match for the HM350-1, as is the PC300-7, another model that Eutaw owns,” says Lyle. “They’ve been reliable excavators, so we helped Eutaw build its articulated fleet around them.”

A Break in the Clouds
With a respite from the constant rain and with drainage of the retention pond, Eutaw Construction has been able to complete this section of work at the Nissan site. But for a company that has grown between 20% and 50% during each of the last three years, much work lies ahead. The articulated trucks now have a permanent slot in Eutaw’s equipment roster and are used on any one of the 10 projects running at a given time. Whether developing a site or working on a highway, be rest-assured that when the skies open or when a site is exceedingly wet or rough, the fleet of HM350s will persevere where scrapers simply cannot.

GEC - November/December 2003