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Construction of Gravel Roads

i. Gravel roads can carry heavier traffic than earth roads and consist of a carriageway constructed using gravel. The camber is typically between 1 in 25 and 1 in 30. ii. There are two main types of construction methods for gravel roads - the feather edge type and trench type. Material selection is also important, with harder crushed stone or gravel being preferable over softer stones or rounded gravels. iii. Construction involves preparing the subgrade, placing gravel in layers and compacting using rollers to achieve the desired cross slope and camber. The road is then opened to traffic once fully dried and set.

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Fatush Cadey
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209 views

Construction of Gravel Roads

i. Gravel roads can carry heavier traffic than earth roads and consist of a carriageway constructed using gravel. The camber is typically between 1 in 25 and 1 in 30. ii. There are two main types of construction methods for gravel roads - the feather edge type and trench type. Material selection is also important, with harder crushed stone or gravel being preferable over softer stones or rounded gravels. iii. Construction involves preparing the subgrade, placing gravel in layers and compacting using rollers to achieve the desired cross slope and camber. The road is then opened to traffic once fully dried and set.

Uploaded by

Fatush Cadey
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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CONSTRUCTION OF GRAVEL ROADS

CONSTRUCTION OF GRAVEL ROADS


Gravel roads are considered superior to earth roads as they
can carry heavier traffic. The road consist of carriageway
constructed using the gravels. The camber may be between
1 in 25 and 1 in 30.
A well compacted crushed rock or gravel road fairly
resilient and does not become slippery when wet. This type
of road can cater for about 100 tones of pneumatic tyred
vehicle or 60 tones of iron vehicles per day per lane. Two
types of construction methods are generally followed. They
are the feather edge type and trench type
Feather edge type is constructed over the Subgrade with
varying thickness, so as to obtain the desired cross slop
for the pavement surface.
Trench type the Sub grade is prepared by excavating s
shallow trench.

material
Hard variety of crushed stone or gravel of specified
gradation is used. However softer varieties of stones may
also be utilized. There are no specifications for the materials
rounded stones and river gravel are not preferable as there is
poor interlocking.
Construction procedure

i. Material Gravel to be used for the construction is


stacked along the sides of the proposed road.

ii. Location the center line and road edges are marked on
the ground along the alignment, by driving wooden pegs,
reference pegs are also driven to help in following the
desired vertical profile of the road during construction.
The spacing of the reference pegs depends on the
estimated length for road construction per day.
iii. Preparation of Subgrade
Site is cleared and fills and cuts are completed. Trench is
formed to the desired depth of construction, the width of the
trench is made equal to that of carriageway. The trench is
brought to the desired grade and is compacted.
iv. Pavement construction
Crushed gravel aggregates are placed carefully in the trench
so as to avoid segregation aggregates are spread with greater
thickness at centre and less towards the edges so as to obtain
the desired camber. The layer is rolled using smooth wheeled
roller starting from the edges and proceeding towards the
centre with an overlap of at least half the width of roller in
the longitudinal direction.
Some quantity of water may also be sprayed and rolling is
done again so that the compaction is effective. The
camber is checked and corrected from time to time a
template or camber board.
v) Opening to traffic a few days after the final rolling
the road is opened to the traffic.
CONSTRUCTION OF WATER BOUND MACADAM ROADS (WBM)

The water bound macadam (WBM) is the construction


known after the name of john macadam. The term
macadam in the present day means, the pavement base
course made of crushed or broken aggregates bound
together by the action of rolling and or traffic. The binding
action in WBM is achieved by stone used as filler, in
presence of water. Water bound macadam is constructed in
thicknesses ranging between 8 cm to 30 cm depending
upon the design requirements. When used as surface course
WBM gets deteriorated rapidly under the mixed traffic
condition and so WBM is frequently used as base course
And is covered either with bituminous surfacing or
cement concrete surfacing. Each layer of WBM is of
thickness not more than 12 to 15 cm and thus thicknesses
upto 30 cm for highway pavements are composed of two
or three layers each is compacted to 75 to 80 percent of
loose thickness.
The WBM roads are made of the following materials
❖ WBM made with gravels including crushed gravel
❖ WBM made with hard broken stones
❖ WBM made with soft broken stones like bricks
ballast, kankar, laterites etc.
The shape of the broken stones should be preferably angular
and cubical to have adequate interlocking. Hence rounded
gravels are considered undesirable in WBM construction,
particularly when superior wearing is not provided.
WBM base course consist of clean, crushed coarse aggregate
mechanically interlocked by rolling and voids there of filled
with screening and binding material with the assistance of
water, laid on a prepared Subgrade, sub base, base or
existing pavements as case my be.
Materials for WBM road

The specification of materials of water bound macadam


construction are different from those for surface treated
water bound macadam. The material required for WBM
construction are course aggregates, screening and filler
materials.
The coarse aggregate is either of 90 to 40 mm size or 63 to
40 mm size or 50 to 25 size, fulfilling the specified
gradation requirement. The maximum size to be used
depends on the type of aggregate available and the total
consolidated thickness of the layer.
The specified gradation requirements of coarse
aggregates are given below; however the gradation
requirement is not important, if the aggregate used would
get crushed under the roller.
Grading NO Size range Sieve size mm Percent by weight passing the size mm
1 90 to 40 mm 100 100
80 65-85
63 25-60
40 0-15
20 0-5
2 63 to 40 mm 80 100
63 90-100
50 35-70
40 0-15
20 0-5
3 50 to 25 mm 63 100
50 95-100
40 35-70
20 0-10
10 0-5
Thus angular and cubical broken stone aggregates should
be preferred to ensure proper interlocking. The use of
large boulder stones or full bricks at lower layer should
be discouraged.
The screening and other filler materials used to fill up the
voids in the course aggregates should meet the grading
requirement given below.
Type of screening Sieve size Percent by weight passing the
sieve

12.5mm ( for grading 1 or 12.5 mm 100


2)

10.0 90-100

4.75 10-30

150microns 0-8

10 mm ( for grading 2 or 3) 10.00mm 100

4.75 85-100

150microns 10-30
Construction procedure for WBM
Material Required
The material required for construction is stacked on the
road side. Samples from the stacks are collected and their
grading are examined with regard to specifications. It is
recommended to provide 20 percent extra broken stones on
volume basis. Thus for one kilometer length per meter
width and for one centimeter thickness, the aggregates
required would be 6/5x1000x1/100=12 cubic meters. The
quantity of screenings required is about 30 cubic meters per
10 square meter area.
Construction steps
1. Preparation of Subgrade: the site is cleared and
either a trench is cut to the required camber or earth
bunds are made in order to provide a confinement to
the loose aggregates for compaction by rolling. The
week spots are corrected and rolled before the coarse
aggregates are placed.
2. Pavements construction this is done in following
stages.
a) Lateral Confinement : suitable bunds are provided
on both sides along the edges so as to confine the
aggregates while spreading and rolling.
b) Spreading of coarse aggregates: the coarse aggregates
are spread upon the prepared surface from the sack piles
on the road side. The thickness of each layer should be
such that the compacted thickness normally does not
exceed 7.5 cm .The aggregates are spread evenly to the
required profile by using templates placed across the road
about 6 meters apart. The surface is checked from time to
time ensuring the proper grade and camber.
Dry Rolling : After spreading the coarse aggregates, the
same are compacted to a full width by rolling. For this
purpose, a three wheel power roller of 6 to 10 tones
capacity or tandem roller or equivalent vibratory roller is
used

Application of screening: After the coarse aggregates


are thoroughly keyed and set by rolling, the screenings
are spread uniformly to fill in the interstices. Dry
rolling and booming are carried out. The quantity of
screenings used is such as to fill about 50 percent of
total voids. The rest of voids may be filled with filler
material.
Wet Rolling: After spreading the screenings, the surface is
sprinkled with water, swept and rolled. Hand brooms are
used to place the wet screenings into voids.
Application of filler: the filler material with plasticity
index not more than 9 is applied in two successive thin
layer. After the application the surface is sprinkled with
water . The slurry is allowed to fill the voids. Rolling is
then done with 6 to 10 tones roller.
Finishing of surface: the road section is allowed to
dry overnight and a layer of sand or earth about 6mm
thick is spread on the surface, lightly sprinkled with
water and rolled.

c) shoulders: These are formed to the same cross slope


of the pavement and are compacted by rolling or
tamping.
d) Opening to traffic: The traffic is allowed when the
WBM has properly dried and set.

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