Each new road begins with soil and rock construction
Nature does not always provide the ideal ground conditions – whether for civil engineering or structural engineering projects. Quite often, the existing soil requires preliminary treatment to improve its bearing capacity. In other places, massive rock formations need to be levelled.
What methods are used for laying the foundations?
soil compaction
Since the soil is frequently loose and insufficiently cohesive, earthworks are required before the base course, binder course and surface course can be laid. Compaction is the most important process in earthworks. The purpose of compaction is to reduce the volume of soil filled with air and water. This gives the soil the desired properties: it becomes more resistant to the stresses imposed by traffic and climate.Nature doesn’t always provide the ideal foundation for the construction of roads: natural rock. In the majority of cases, the ground is unstable, offering insufficient bearing capacity. Earthmoving operations are therefore usually the first step in the construction of a new road. When the course has been defined and set out, the ground underlying the new road needs to be prepared
soil stabilization
Road construction requires a stable base. How to improve the nature of existing soil? What are the binding agents used for this purpose.Extremely cohesive and wet soils are not suitable for compaction by rollers. In such cases, the existing soil needs to be stabilized first to improve its bearing capacity and prepare it as a suitable base for the upper pavement structure .
Routing operations
Before commencing the actual road building operation, the prerequisites for doing so need to be established. When driving roads through rocky terrain, cold milling machines or surface miners are used to prepare the ground for road construction - or to cut the route, as the professionals would say.Road builders are confronted not only with subsoils that are excessively soft or instable, but also with bases that are extremely hard – too hard for roads to be built to the specified level without preparing the ground first. This difficulty typically arises when a road is to be built in mountainous terrain or in other areas where the ground is rocky or extremely hard. When that is the case, routing operations need to be carried out first