Wirtgen’s W 210 Fi Large Milling Machine

Wirtgen, the cold milling machine specialist, is boosting milling efficiency in the long-term with its new large milling machine generation.

A total of three W 210 Fi machines demonstrated the added value of their technological innovations during rehabilitation of the A 31 motorway, which connects the A 4 Milan-Venice motorway with the Alps. The task on a 1.4 km section in the province of Vicenza was to mill the pavement off to a depth of 22 cm near the Thiene exit. The lower base course was then stabilized with cement by a Wirtgen WR 250 recycler and soil stabilizer over an area of roughly 15,000 m² and subsequently compacted by Hamm rollers.

Vögele pavers then laid the asphalt. To separate the milled material according to the types of mix, the large milling machines first removed the surface course to a depth of 4 cm, and then milled the 18 cm-thick asphalt binder course and asphalt base course in a second pass. This allowed systematic reintroduction of the separate layers into the material cycle.

Dual Shift: More quality, less fuel, wear and tear

The cold milling machines drove in staggered formation to continuously “feed” a rapid succession of 45 dump trucks with milled material. The intelligent control of the two-speed powershift transmission combined with the diesel engine extends the range of milling drum speeds, both upwards and downwards. This supports significant reductions in fuel consumption and cutting tool wear in the low milling drum speed range. A high-quality milling pattern can be achieved in the upper milling drum speed range, even when working with a high area output. This makes the W 210 Fi professional machine ideal for particularly demanding milling jobs.


The professional machine with the strongest milling performance demonstrates its full potential on the A 31 motorway in northern Italy.

Easy operation

The three milling service providers had opted to primarily use three W 210 Fi machines for the rehabilitation of the A31 motorway. “This machine allows the operator to concentrate more effectively on the work, thanks to the excellent visibility and the new control and data acquisition systems,” says Massimo Valerio, pointing out the control panel of the new large milling machines.


Wirtgen has developed a solution that, for the first time, makes it possible to accurately and reliably document actual milling work completed – the new PERFORMANCE TRACKER (WPT).

To operate the machine at the optimum operating point, Massimo Valerio and his colleagues previously had to set a large number of machine parameters, such as the diesel engine and milling drum speed, the milling speed or the quantity of water required to cool the cutting tools, relying only on their intuition and experience. This was a highly challenging task considering the complexity involved. Varying conditions, such as different degrees of pavement material hardness, also required frequent manual adjustments.

This is where Mill Assist comes in. It continuously processes more than 60 signals to simulate many different setting variations and combinations in real time using complex algorithms and formulas. In automatic mode, Mill Assist always strikes the optimum balance between milling performance and operating costs. This not only improves machine performance, but also reduces diesel, water and cutting tool consumption as well as CO2 emissions. Massimo Valerio was also immediately struck by the “lower noise emissions and vibrations when milling 10, 15 or even 18 cm, as we are doing here” – Milling 4.0 on the A 31. “Mill Assist helps me enormously” praises the milling machine driver his assistant on the A 31.