Airport & Motorway Grooving

Lloyd Drilling specialises in grooving airport runway/pavement. Our grooving and support equipment can be quickly mobilised to our clients location to deliver large runway grooving projects down to small concrete retexturing works. Our teams are highly skilled and experienced and have worked on airports around the world.

Airport Grooving

Grooving is used to increase surface adhesion and prevent aeroplanes aquaplaning on runways by removing surface water. It is believed to be the most cost effective way to increase the co-efficient of friction in the wet whilst improving safety. It also reduces the take-off and landing distances of aircraft.

Lloyd Drilling have grooved runways for the past 37 years. Whilst we carry out other work on runways (drilling and sawing), our runway expertise is grooving. We are specialists. Our grooves are uniform due to our specially built equipment with optimum performance 750mm. wide cutting heads. Our teams pride themselves on the finished product. The machinery is maintained on a daily basis during contracts, ensuring reliability. Whether you require day, night or split shift working we will work with you to meet your every requirement. We believe that grooving is a standalone specialist service providing the critical "finish", the safety blanket, to runways that have cost hundreds of thousands to create.

When choosing a grooving contractor, it is important to consider all the elements of the proposal, the estimated cost per square metre to the estimated time for completion. One important consideration is the contractors track record in delivering the job to time and schedule. In the past, we have been contacted to ensure that a delayed contract is finished on time. Bring in the experts from the start and we will tell you if the programme is too tight and will work with others rather than commit to an impossible schedule. We always make every effort to deliver on time.

Our operation is supported by water tankers, vacuum pick units and mechanical brushes. We will provide as much of this ancillary plant as you require, working self-sufficiently or working with other subcontractors. Over the past few years Lloyd Drilling have completed major grooving contracts at the following airports - Stansted, RAF Brize Norton, Leeds Bradford, Falkland Islands, Gatwick, Cork, Dublin.

Please contact us on your next grooving project and let us offer our experience. You lay the runway we’ll do the grooving. We would be more than willing to meet to discuss your requirements.

Motorway Grooving

Bump Cutting and Retexturing is often used to remove slight undulations on finished concrete surfaces and roads. New concrete that may not have the required brush finish can be textured to achieve specification. These machines are also used to retexture old and polished surfaces. Bush hammering and scabbling prepares concrete surfaces for overlays and improves skid resistance.

Lloyd Drilling is one of the only companies in the UK that can carry out trials using a purpose built bump-cutting machine. The machines that we have available for bump cutting have a 600mm wide capability. However these machines can cut carriageways transversely provided that the hard shoulder is wide enough to accommodate the machine. True and accurate bump cutting can only be carried out using an extra long machine that can straddle the bumps taking off only the high spots. Diamond blades are available in various widths 3-4-5-6-7-8-10 wide all can be spaced singularly or in pairs to produce a multitude of textures.

Other Grooving Applications

This GROOVING process is adapted for use in many diverse applications to increase surface adhesion eg motorway grooving or as a preventive measure, for example, to stop cattle slipping in farm buildings or to prevent forklift trucks sliding on ramps. Lloyd Drilling has a wide range of grooving machines suitable for any application.