Borrow pit

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

An excavator working in a borrow pit.

In construction and civil engineering, a borrow pit, also known as a sand box, is an area where
material (usually soil, gravel or sand) has been dug for use at another location.[1] Borrow pits can be
found close to many major construction projects. For example, soil might be excavated to fill an
embankment for a highway, clay might be excavated for use in brick-making, gravel to be used for
making concrete, etc.
In some cases, the borrow pits may become filled with ground water, forming recreational areas or
sustainable wildlife habitats (one such example is the Merton Borrow Pit, near Oxford in
central England, excavated to provide materials for the nearby M40 motorway). In other cases,
borrow pits may be used for landfill and waste disposal.
A regional variation of this is termed "barrow pit" in the western United States (especially the Rocky
Mountains). The localism -- sometimes pronounced "borrer pit" -- describes the ditch along a
roadway. These ditches were created to provide the fill to level and crown the roadway and
subsequently provided drainage for the road.[2]

See also[edit]
 Cut and fill
 Earthworks (engineering)
 Gravel pit
 Quarry

Subgrade
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 Layers in the construction of a mortarless pavement: A.) Subgrade B.) Subbase C.) Base course D.) Paver
base E.) Pavers F.) Fine-grained sand
In transport engineering, subgrade is the native material underneath a constructed road,[1] pavement
or railway (US: railroad) track. It is also called formation level.
The term can also refer to imported material that has been used to build an embankment.

Construction[edit]
Subgrades are commonly compacted before the construction of a road, pavement or railway track,
and are sometimes stabilized by the addition of asphalt, lime, portland cement or other modifiers.
The subgrade is the foundation of the pavement structure, on which the subbase is laid.
The load-bearing strength of subgrade is measured by California Bearing Ratio (CBR) test, falling
weight deflectometer backcalculations and other methods.