Continue to Site

Eng-Tips is the largest engineering community on the Internet

Intelligent Work Forums for Engineering Professionals

  • Congratulations SDETERS on being selected by the Eng-Tips community for having the most helpful posts in the forums last week. Way to Go!

Pavement Design Question and What to look for Boring logs (California)

Blackfairy

Civil/Environmental
Jul 22, 2024
5
Hi, I want some advice.

I am designing a Flexible and Rigid Pavement of an access road where an HS-16 truck will access it maybe 2-3 times a day only so very low traffic. It is just an access road going to a fish release site so its a Fish Tank truck. This is in California btw.

1) If I get a boring log, what tests I will need? Right now on top of my head I will need to get the California R-value for pavement design, SPT, and the usual others. Do I need to know other soil parameters, I know I might need the type of soil and stuff, LL, PI, but I really have no idea how to convert them to useful information if that subgrade is good enough for my pavement. As you can see I do not have much experience in interpreting it. We also do not have a Geotech per se, we just have lots of geologist to get samples and do the tests that we ask them to. P.S. boring log might be overkill for a road but i will need a boring log since part of the project are piles to support the Fish release pipes going from the shore to the underwater river.

2) I design my HMA using the Caltrans Design manual and is there like a design where I do not need a subbase? My colleague told me that if the soil is good enough you won't need a subbase but again what is good enough? What parameters I need to look at? the California R value? what value should it be considered good enough.

3) For example in my design right now using the Caltrans Pavement Design I have like 3" HMA, 6" of agg base and around 6" of agg subbase, if I dont want to use or spec a subbase, can I just have it 12" of agg base? I know its more expensive but we are only looking at around 600-700ft of access road on the project. I will use an agg base anyway on a concrete pad where the Fish Release Pipe are anyway that is why i will just use the same agg base for the road and hopefully not add a subbase.
 

Part and Inventory Search

Sponsor