Skidabrader Group
Road Friction Gripped in Place

Steve Klugherz, President

Created back in the 19s 80s, Skidabrading is one of the first and most effective machine-engineered methods to enhance vehicular skid resistance by a proprietary abrading process. At the time, the technology was used in non-skid removal on aircraft carrier decks for the Navy and was developed from stationary blast technology used to clean metal or peen motor blocks or rail car chassis. The abrading machines became bigger and more refined for preparing road surfaces and were soon used for creating clean measured surface profiles on roads and bridges.

Skidabrader Group made bigger versions of the machines and expanded the technology to quickly and economically apply friction to the road to extend their life and friction. That vision dreamt up in the 80s has since been perfected, and Skidabrading has become the go-to road abrading method for the current generation of roadways. AsSteve Klugherz, President of the Skidabrader Group states, “Today, the Skidabrader Group represents a high production pavement texturing service for the transportation industry for roads, bridges, and runways and delivers the service to customers via our fleet of custom trucks mounted with High Velocity Impact Blast Heads .” No challenge is too big, and the company can take on any sizeable contract in North America and Abroad.

Solving the Challenge of Friction with Innovation

To provide quality grip on roadways, it is important to create quality texturing at both the micro and macro levels to enable the rubber treads of the tires to hold on to the surface. Unique in its ability to blast in a 360 degree pattern around aggregate in the substrate, Skidabrading can create perfect micro and macro friction on any road surface. Using a high-velocity impact method, the Skidabrader machine is a six foot wide purpose-built machine with bi-directional centrifugal wheel, with blast heads that release 2000 pounds of steel shot every 60 seconds at the surface. The shot abrasive is then recovered through an energy and vacuum process that recycles it through a screen air wash system and returns the abrasive back to the blast wheels.

“There is nothing added to the surface to come loose and damage vehicles under traffic as is the case with micro surfacing and chip seals. Skidabrading is a dry surface treatment that removes some of the softer surface matrix and its trapped contaminants to expose new sharp points of the aggregates readily available in the original mix design,” Klugherz.

It's the only technology of its kind in the market today, delivered in a cost-effective, economical, quick, and very productive manner. The process removes the need for extensive lane closures and requires only about 1/10th of the cost of high friction surface treatment applications, as with resins and aggregate applied to the surface to create friction or surface protection. As a result, the process ensures 360-degree aggregate exposure with an aesthetically pleasing seamless appearance, and the high-velocity impact method does not significantly change the color, devoid of streaking and overlap scarring. Further, the noise characteristics of the treated surface compare very well against other pavement textures as well.

Utility Delivered via Exemplary Practicality

The Skidabrader Group’s role in rendering Skidabrading as a service model is just one of their key differentiators in this space. To add to their repertoire, the Skidabrading material itself can be recycled, and the process is dry and environmentally clean due to its highly efficient filtration system mounted on tandem axel highway trucks, which is how the solution literally meets the road. Every vehicle in a Skidabrader operation is capable of highway mobilization at the legal speed limit on its own wheels, eliminating the need for loading and unloading equipment. This capability allows a rolling safety zone configuration among the trucks, creating the least impact on traffic in adjacent lanes. Breakdowns are virtually non-existent due to quality construction and rigid maintenance of the machines, and the operators in charge have years of both on and off the job training before they are authorized to take on the controls.

The machines also leverage wireless communications, laser-guided alignment and closed-circuit TV systems to ensure that the longitudinal passes of the abrasions run parallel to the structures themselves.

Once complete, the on-site transfer of the fly-ash type surface material generated during the process is unnecessary. The excess material can be transported off-site, fully enclosed to be stockpiled for recycling back into pavement for fill or for soil stabilization. Furthermore, Skidabrader Group recycles almost 100 percent of its steel abrasive material as well on a continual basis. However, in sensitive areas, they will use truck-mounted electromagnets to sweep the surface to recover all metal objects, including pre-existing parts that have fallen off vehicles during traffic.

Driven Forward with Commitment and a Penchant for Success

Skidabrader Group’s operation is so efficient that the company was featured on local TV news stations and on national TV networks such as the History Channel and the Discovery Channel. More recently the company worked with the Maryland department of transportation to ‘Skidabrade' 'the big curve’ as they call it in Maryland, which was having excessive accidents. The specialists at the company came in and performed a demonstration a few months ago and showed the client the profile and friction results they could achieve. Needless to say, the client asked Skidabrader Group to fulfill 30 lane miles of Skidabrading. Since providing the service, they client has had no accidents in wet weather, minimizing lane closures and loss of work time, deaths and injuries, and releasing emergency services from having to respond, saving money; allowing highway patrols, fire departments and EMTs to respond to other emergencies.

The company thus believes that the future of this industry is all data. By putting together, crash data and road friction together in an algorithm and measuring the results, it is easy to see where the industry is headed. As Klugherz puts it, “By collecting information that's available in the market today and analyzing it, we can immediately address the relevant areas for measurable results.” In conjunction with intra-expansion, the inter-expansion of the company is scheduled to take place in coming months, as Skidabrader Group works to open offices in Texas and Pennsylvania to add to the offices they already have in Louisville, , Louisiana, Arizona and California thus making their equipment more readily available to the customers. The company is also in the process of building the next generation of machines for Canada, Mexico, and international markets, to extend the safety of secure roads for all that ride along it.