Scribd
Upload
41 views6 pages

Earth Works

Earthworks involve moving and processing soil or unformed rock to prepare land for construction projects like roads. They determine a highway's route and elevation profile. Earthworks are a major cost and involve excavating, hauling, and compacting materials. They are necessary to access stable soil layers, avoid problems, replace undesirable soils, meet stricter alignment needs due to higher vehicle speeds, and find sound foundation materials as urbanization reduces available land. Earthworks typically occur during new road construction, regravelling, upgrades, and repairs. Key steps include routing, surveying, clearing, testing foundation materials, cutting and filling, controlling grades, selecting equipment, and quality control.

Uploaded by

IZIMBA
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
41 views6 pages

Earth Works

Earthworks involve moving and processing soil or unformed rock to prepare land for construction projects like roads. They determine a highway's route and elevation profile. Earthworks are a major cost and involve excavating, hauling, and compacting materials. They are necessary to access stable soil layers, avoid problems, replace undesirable soils, meet stricter alignment needs due to higher vehicle speeds, and find sound foundation materials as urbanization reduces available land. Earthworks typically occur during new road construction, regravelling, upgrades, and repairs. Key steps include routing, surveying, clearing, testing foundation materials, cutting and filling, controlling grades, selecting equipment, and quality control.

Uploaded by

IZIMBA
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 6

EARTH WORK CONSTRUCTION

Earthworks are engineering works created through the moving or processing of


quantities of soil or unformed rock. Earth works are a major component in road
construction projects since they determine the location of highway and selection of its
vertical alignment. The costs of material excavation, haulage and compaction are
normally enormous. The following are the reasons why earthwork has to be done:
1. Usually the soil insitu may not be ideal from view point of soils engineering. The
soils may need to be removed so as to access more sound layers.
2. The engineer may select an alternative site for a highway so as to avoid would be
problem e.g social problems, economic, political e.t.c
3. It may be necessary to remove undesirable soils and replace them with desirable
ones
4. The increase in vehicle speeds, due to improved technology has forced stricter
alignment requirements.
5. The growth of cities (urbanization) and industrial areas has minimized the supply
of sites with sound foundation materials.

Earth works are normally done during


- New construction of a road/ highway/air field
- Regravelling of murram roads
- Upgrading of highways
- Repair/maintenance of Gravel/Bituminous roads

Prerequisites to earthwork construction


1. Selection of the routing site for the highway
2. Acquisition of the site
3. Land surveys to establish relevant survey data
4. Location of route through
a) Right of way demarcation
b) Staking – Section stakes to define the regions of cut and fill
- Profile stakes to define curve points and tangent points along the
centerline
5. Route clearance
a) Crubbing of shrubs, trees, bushes, anthills
b) Vegetable soil removal
c) Preliminary testing of foundation material : gradation and comp actability
d) Making cuts and fills in various locations
6. Control of grades – Both transverse and longitudinal
a) Select grades from specs
b) Temporary Bench Mark definition
7. Select equipment to use in earthworks
8. Prepare sub- grade, sub-base and the base
9. Ensure Quality Control/Quality Assurance
Typical alignments in Earthworks
Structure of Pavement
Wearing course: The layer is usually of bituminous nature
a) Hot mix Asphalt
b) Surface dressing (Double or Single seal)

Base: A layer of selected treated material which may be murram or crushed and
controlled stone. The murram may be treated with cement, lime, Asphalt

Sub-base: A layer of aggregate of planned thickness and quality placed on the sub grade

Sub-grade: This is a road bed that is prepared as specified upon which a sub base, base
and wearing course of the pavement are placed. It serves as the support for the whole
pavement.
Portions of a Pavement section
Carriageway (Travelled way) is a portion of roadway built for movement of vehicles
exclusive of shoulders and auxiliary lanes for slow movers.
Typical cross-sections
a) 2-Level section (cut)

b) Three level section (fill)

c) Five level section (cut)

Equipment used in earthwork operations

Proper and efficient use of machinery for earthworks is very vital. Typical examples of
heavy earthwork moving equipment are given in the list below.
1. Bull dozer: used in ripping and loosening of earth in preparation for excavation,
earth moving and free removal in the rough grounds. Bull dozers may be used to
push earth over relatively short distances (100 – 200m),they are fitted with
straight or angle blades.
2. Crawler tractors: fitted with ripping attachments for penetrating and breaking of
hard ground.
3. Truck loaders: Digging, loading and at times short haul transportation of soil.
They may have Rubber tired front end which are used in loading trucks with
earth, filling trenches, excavation e.t.c
4. Graders: These are used in grading/shaping surfaces (subgrade, base, shoulders,
ditches, back slopes) to the required angle and transport material over short
distance
5. Dump trucks: Used to transport spoil material from site and borrow material from
the borrow area to the site.
6. Belt conveyors: These are used to transport materials in lieu of trucks where the
soils are weak and cannot support trucks.
7. Rollers:
a) Steel wheeled roller: may be operated both statically or in a vibratory mode or
may be a tandem or tridem type. The steel drums are normally ballasted with
water or sand to increase weight. They are normally smooth wheeled and are
used to compact entire width of the roller.
b) Pneumatic tired roller: This has air filled rubber tires that are smooth without
treads. They offer a more uniform compactor compared to the steel wheeled type.
The tires on different axles alternate so as to offer total coverage over the rolled
surface. Pressure in the tires can be varied to produce the desired contact pressure
with the ground.
c) Sheep foot roller: Contain protrusions resembling feet of sheep on one of its
drum. It imparts more rolling pressure on the ground compared to steel wheeled
or pneumatic tired rollers. Mostly used for fine grained soils
d) Vibratory: These include vibrating smooth wheeled rollers, plate compactors and
vibro tampers.

You might also like

pFad - Phonifier reborn

Pfad - The Proxy pFad of © 2024 Garber Painting. All rights reserved.

Note: This service is not intended for secure transactions such as banking, social media, email, or purchasing. Use at your own risk. We assume no liability whatsoever for broken pages.


Alternative Proxies:

Alternative Proxy

pFad Proxy

pFad v3 Proxy

pFad v4 Proxy