Asphalt, Road Materials & Paving Products worked example

Drum Dryer Asphalt Capacity at 99% dryer operating uptime: a worked example

Push dryer operating uptime up to 99% and the picture changes. This example computes every intermediate figure at that operating point. a plant needs to know whether drum drying capacity can support the requested tons per shift or paving window

The inputs for this scenario

  • Aggregate tons dried per cycle: 18 tons / cycle (unchanged)
  • Available dryer cycles in the period: 90 cycles (unchanged)
  • Dryer operating uptime: 99 % (raised for this scenario; the documented default is 88)
  • Dry aggregate yield (moisture-passing): 96 % (unchanged)

Working through the calculation

  • Applying the documented formula (Gross dryer capacity = aggregate tons dried per cycle × available dryer cycles) to the inputs above produces each figure below.
  • At this operating point the engine returns 1,540 tons for usable drum dryer capacity, the number this scenario is built around.
  • At this operating point the engine returns 1,620 tons for gross dryer capacity.
  • At this operating point the engine returns 16.2 tons for tons lost to dryer downtime.
  • At this operating point the engine returns 64.15 tons for tons lost to moisture/rejects.

How this compares with the baseline

  • Against the tool's baseline example, where dryer operating uptime sits at 88% and the headline result is 1,369 tons, this scenario comes in 12.5% above the baseline at 1,540 tons.
  • It computes usable drum dryer capacity by taking tons dried per cycle across available cycles, then derating for dryer uptime and moisture-passing yield, and it shows the tons lost to each. The value of this scenario is the size of the gap it exposes: that gap, priced out over a year, is the budget you can justify spending to close it.

Results at a glance

  • Usable drum dryer capacity: 1,540 tons (headline result)
  • Gross dryer capacity: 1,620 tons
  • Tons lost to dryer downtime: 16.2 tons
  • Tons lost to moisture/rejects: 64.15 tons

Run it with your numbers

  • Every input above is editable in the live Drum Dryer Asphalt Capacity calculator, which recalculates instantly and can be shared with the inputs intact.

Last reviewed 2026-05-12.