Gravel road rutting in turnaround

[bekirk]

I have limited space for a gravel road turnaround circle for empty 6,000 gallon water tanker trucks. The outer radius for the turnaround is limited to about 86'. I've been told by the drivers that cutting the turn that tight will likely cut ruts in the stone. Are there ways to minimize rutting under these circumstances or is this a highly unsustainable design. Any guidance or direction to resources would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Barton

 

[LCruiser]

What kind of soil is underneath? What kind of gravel, and how thick?

 

[bekirk]

Gravelly sandy clay loam; well-drained but seasonally high ground water. road bed: 1.5" stone compacted to 6" deep with 3/4" stone compacted to 3" deep.

 

[LCruiser]

Are they driving on it now and warning it *will* go bad, or did they just look at it, or what? I presume it's crushed rock. Has it been rolled well, or will there be a roller around when the ruts might start showing up?

Any HMA going down anywhere close by?

 

[bekirk]

There is an existing gravel road that has been receiving regular water truck traffic for 5 years with little issue. The turn around has not been constructed yet. The truck driver simply commented on the site plan concept with a familiarity of the acutal site.

There is no HMA planned for the area. The soils prone to frost action and with the seasonally high ground water, I thought a stone road might be preferable, but this is not my area of expertise. Would a geotextile and or geo-grid material be a good thing to look into in this case?

 

[garrettk]

More than likely you will receive rutting due to the turning radius.

Crushed rock will eventually lose some of the fine contents due to rain and the top surface will become closer to a gap graded stone. Without the fines, the stone will have a tendancy to move a lot more than when freshly placed.

Regular maintenance will likely include some dozer or grader work with a smooth drummed roller.

I'd suggest looking at a biaxial geogrid to help seperate the stone from the subgrade. That will help with the overall life, but won't address the maintenance issue.

 

[tzirby]

Hello...brand new to the forum.
I've been in and around the excavation/construction/heavy equipment operation field for 30+ years. I recently was hired by a high-end home builder/contractor with an excavation division, and will become more involved in the engineering and blueprint reading, so I will be a more valuable employee. My problem is, this is my weak area of expertise. I can and have built many septic systems and various engineered things in the past, but I would like to enhance my print reading skills for my own personal satisfaction.Determining radius points, etc. is critical, as well as many other simple things. Amazingly,in all of my carreer experience, I've never had the opportunity to take a simple print reading course; it's been all boots-in-the-field, hands-on experience. No substitute for that, I truly believe, but as a high acheiver, I would like to sharpen my skills a bit.
Can anyone refer me to, or offer any tools that may be of assistance to me to help broaden my knowledge?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance.

 

[tzirby]

Sorry people...I should have posted this as a new thread, but didn't pay attention.

 

[cvg]

Note - in this day and age, I rarely hear the term "blueprint" as blueprints were abandoned years ago. Even "bluelines" are rarely if ever produced anymore.

I have never heard of such a "print reading course" so I believe you will have to devise your own. As an EIT many years ago, I learned to understand plans by reading, checking and doing takeoffs on many different types of plans and prepared by different engineerings companies. You could do this by acquiring sample plans and reviewing them in your spare time. If you have questions, find somebody who can answer them after you have attempted to do it yourself. You could acquire quite a few different plans by going down to city hall and reviewing the public records.

 

[Hoagie]

Tzirby,

It's okay to call them blueprints, or prints, whatever--we know what you mean.

If you can't find a civil drafting course in your region (or online), then buy primer-level site design or landscape architecture books to study. If you compliement such reading with online researching/blogging, you should be able to grasp most of the common terminology specific to what you do. Another thing to keep in mind is that civil terminology does vary from region-to-region. Contractors are good source, too.

I hope this helps.

H.

 

[tzirby]

Thanks for the reply. I expected to get this kind of feedback, and it goes to show that there's no substitute for hands-on experience.
I'm capable of reading "blueprints", it's just that on this particular project I am working on currently, GPS has been the primary source of locating, layout, etc. Yesterday for example, the GPS was rendered useless as there wasn't any signal due to buildings being in the way, satellite issues, etc.,so I suggested we referred back to the "prints" for layout. The foreman stated we can't, because the entire site has been built to the GPS models, so we couldn't go by the prints anymore.
Being "old-school", I'm wondering if all that expensive technology is really worth it, having had 1/2 of the day at a standstill, and 4 men hanging around because we couldn't lay out for some work.
Thanks again.

 

[civilperson]

A 172 foot diameter turnaround should survive low speed manuevers with occasional grader maintenance,(more than weekly). Try to limit speeds to less than 5 mph.

 

[LCruiser]

Problem C: Sounds like the foreman was blowing smoke.

Problem B: I don't think they have 172 feet.

Problem A: This thread was partially hijacked. tzirby - you should link to your new thread and not use this one anymore.

 

[civilperson]

86 foot radius was given in original post. What foreman with a tobacco vice are we referring to?

 

[LCruiser]

tzirby's foreman.

 

[bekirk]

Thanks everyone for your input and the suggestion to move the blueprint discussion to another thread (though I agree, it sounds like the foreman didn't know what he was talking about)

Back to the turn-around, 86' radius OR 172' diameter is our limitation without cutting existing trees. We're looking for minimal site impact, but if we could dramatically reduce grading frequency by taking out a few trees, I'd consider it. Do any of you have a sense of how much wider we should cut the turn-around to make the roadway significantly more sustainable?

Civil person were you serious about more than weekly grading? This turnaround would get a maximum of 10 trucks per day

 

[civilperson]

Most counties require a dust control permit for transportation and construction activities. The frequency of grading and watering for dust palliative is initially estimated and then can be bumped up according to neighbor's complaints. If your tanker trucks could use a little water to temper the turnaround grade, then the grading frequency might diminish.