Hastings Deering’s Industry Manager Ryan Van Den Broek with the new Cat CS12 GC Vibratory Soil Compactors.
COMPACTING WITH
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HASTINGS DEERING RECENTLY DEBUTED CATERPILLAR’S GC SERIES VIBRATORY SOIL COMPACTORS IN AUSTRALIA, STARTING WITH THE 12-TONNE CS12 GC MODEL. ROADS & INFRASTRUCTURE SPEAKS TO INDUSTRY MANAGER RYAN VAN DEN BROEK ABOUT WHAT THE COMPACTOR BRINGS TO THE INDUSTRY.
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yan Van Den Broek, Hastings Deering’s Industry Manager for Road Construction, is busily training the Hastings Deering Paving Division in Queensland and Northern Territory on Caterpillar’s recently debuted 12-tonne-class CS12 GC models when Roads & Infrastructure catches up with him. First introduced globally by Caterpillar in March this year, Van Den Broek says Hastings Deering had already received first orders from an equipment rental company in Queensland before the first units landed in Australia. “As soon as we had machines on water and on the way, we had already made our first sales,” says Van Den Broek. Hastings Deering’s own rental division has also purchased half a dozen units, expecting more interest from the industry as the new machines start rolling out. To put into context the significance of the new Caterpillar GC Series, one must be familiar with its predecessor: The CS56B vibratory soil compactor. “The CS56B is class-leading in every part of it,” says Van Den Broek. 44
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“Over the past five to six years, the industry has tested the CS56B in the most challenging applications, from climbing dam walls to steep batters, and it has proven its performance on those critical projects.” Where the new GC Series fits in is within the general construction sector, that according to Van Den Broek, comprises over 75 per cent of the market for Hastings Deering. “The CS56B is very high in performance and specifications, but because we didn’t have an alternative for the general construction, we were being compared to competitors that had lower specifications but were much cheaper. Unfortunately, the way the industry is, it is a very much commodity-driven market so customers would just opt for the less expensive12-tonne rollers, without worrying about the performance,” he says. But the new Caterpillar CS12 GC aims to change that. Though a lot closer to the average price point for other 12-tonne compactors on the market, Van Den Broek says the model retains the most popular features from the highperformance B-series compactors.
KEY FEATURES Gradeability is among the first features any prospective buyer or user looks at when choosing soil compactors. Here, Van Den Broek says the CS12 GC is in par with every other compactor on the market, sitting only slightly below the CS56B. “The CS56B comes into a class of its own when you are looking at doing some really steep work or big climb, with 55 or even 58 per cent gradeability. But the CS12 GC still has very good gradeability where it gets up to 50 per cent theoretical gradeability with no vibration. That is still a very high capability,” Van Den Broek says. A high static linear load is another important feature in the CS12 GC. “The best way to know the performance of a soil compactor is the static linear load, which is the amount of weight on the drum that is actually doing the compaction. For a 12-tonne machine, the CS12 GC has a very good static linear load, which we have achieved by keeping the drum weight and other components in the design similar to that of the B series rollers,” he adds. The CS12 GC retains Caterpillar’s proprietary
