Pavement maintenance machine and method

Abstract

A pavement maintenance machine has a side mounted root cutter for cutting subsurface tree roots along the edge of a slab of pavement and a rear mounted pavement milling mechanism for removing an elevated corner of the upheaved slab to eliminate the "toe stubber" hazard created by the corner. The root cutter has a shield which automatically raises and lowers relative to the cutter blade to maintain a certain spacing between the ground and the shield irrespective of the depth of cut of the blade and which automatically covers the blade when the blade is lifted away from the ground. The milling mechanism is anchored to the pavement with the weight of the machine and by a vacuum contact shoe. Once anchored, the milling cutter is fed transversely across the fault to be ground by a guideway and cable/pulley system which amplifies the range of transverse motion the cutter is capable of traversing.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.