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2.0 PRE-CONSTRUCTION OF HIGHWAY

The concept of planning technique and pre-construction of highway.

The activities involved in highway planning and pre-construction works:

a. Site inspection and carriageway determination

b. Surveying work and stacking

c. Site clearing and cutting of top soil

d. Ground work

The objectives of site inspection/ investigation

Site investigation is a process of site exploration consisting of boring, sampling and

testing so as to obtain geotechnical information for a safe, practical and economical
geotechnical evaluation and design. Generally it is an exploration or discovery of the
ground conditions especially on untouched site.

The Importance of SI

 To study the general suitability of the site for an engineering project.

 To enable a safe, practical and economic design to be prepared.
 To determine the possible difficulties that may be encountered by a specific
construction method for any particular civil project.
 To study the suitability of construction material (soil or rock).

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Figure 2.1 : SI is essential for every construction project

Site inspection/ investigation works:

Preliminary Work:

An assessment of information about a site and its surrounding area. A Preliminary

work is designed to determine whether a site poses little or no threat to human health
and the environment or if it does pose a threat, whether the threat requires further
investigation. Preliminary work investigations collect readily available information
about a site and its surrounding area. The Preliminary work is designed to distinguish,
based on limited data, between sites that pose little or no threat to human health and
the environment and sites that may pose a threat and require further investigation. The
Preliminary work also identifies sites requiring assessment for possible response
actions. If the Preliminary Work results in a recommendation for further investigation,
a Site Inspection is performed.

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Site examination:

The process of carrying out investigations on land to determine whether there is

contamination present and to collect sufficient, suitable data for the purpose of risk
assessment. The investigation is normally carried out in several stages. These stages
range from a desk study and simple visual inspection to full intrusive investigation
using trial pits and boreholes and the sampling and analysis of materials.

Ground Profile and Soil sample extraction

Figure 2.2: Ground profile

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Soil Investigation:

In all civil engineering works, the most crucial is the reliability of the information
about the ground on which the civil engineering project will be founded. We would
call this SI, or Site Investigation Information or simply SI.There are various methods
of obtaining SI information, in this paper we will concentrate on most widely used
method, that involving Boring and Drilling.

Figure 2.3: Site investigation data

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Physical principles of determining road and highway carriageway

A carriageway consists of a number of traffic lanes within a road together with any
associated shoulder with no physical barrier between the lanes. A single
carriageway road has one carriageway with 1, 2 or more lanes together with any
associated footways and verges. A Dual carriageway road has two roadways separated
by a central reservation. A local-express lanes system has more than two roadways,
typically two 'local lanes' or 'collector lanes' and also two 'express lanes'. High
occupancy vehicle lanes may also be physically separated from the rest of the general
traffic lanes into a distinct roadway.

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Surveying work and fixation

i. Reconnaissance Survey

The objective of this phase is to identify several feasible routes between the two end
points. For many project, data available on maps and photographs will be out of date
or incomplete. Therefore, a reconnaissance survey from aerial photograph is widely
used to obtain the required information. Feasible routes are identified using
stereoscopic examination of the aerial photographs, taking into considerations the
following factors:

 Terrain and soil conditions

 Serviceability of route to industrial and population areas
 Crossing of other transportation facilities, such as rivers, railroads and other
highways
 Directness of route

The feasible routes identified are then plotted on photographic base maps.

ii. Preliminary Survey

During this phase, feasible alignments for each route are plotted on the base map and
compared for suitability. Features like design capacity, safety, road user costs,
construction costs, maintenance costs are examined for each route. Possible adverse
impact of the various alignments due to the dislocation of families, farms and business
should be carefully considered, as should the effects of the roadways on environment
and ecology. The best route, based on all the factors considered, is the selected as the
preliminary alignment.

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iii. Final Location Survey

The final location survey is a detailed layout of the selected route. The final horizontal
and vertical alignments are determined and the final positions of structures and
drainage channel are located. Following final location, whether done in field or office,
sufficient tangency, and other control points must be carefully referenced on the
ground, to permit easy location during construction. Also, directions of all property
lines, distances to property corners and the locations of buildings, fences and other
improvements must be established accurately.

Site clearing and ground/soil cutting

Site clearance and preparations are generally the first operations to be undertaken on
any road construction. The clearing processes are quite different in urban and rural
areas. In rural areas, the site clearance and preparation involved three main processes.
They are clearing, grubbing and stripping.

Clearing, grubbing and stripping are defined as the removal of trees, stumps, roots,
debris etc. from the area marked on the plans or otherwise designed by the engineer.
Clearing refers to the removing materials above the ground level and grubbing means
the removal and disposal of surface vegetation, roots, stumps and underground part of
structures to a depth of at least 0.50 metres below ground level. Normally clearing and
grubbing constitute a single contract item that includes the removal of topsoil to a
shallow depth. Stripping top soil shall consist of the removal of topsoil to an average
depth of at least 100mm below ground level.

In areas which only involve clearing process, no topsoil shall be removed from such
areas, except as directed by the engineer. Grubbing and stripping of topsoil should not
be carried out at on those areas where:

 Embankment is to be constructed on earth designated as swamp or soft ground

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 Embankment is to be constructed to a height at the centre line of 1.5 metres or

more on ground with a cross-slope of not more than 1 (vertical) to 30
(horizontal).

Some agencies require that all large trees with 450mm or more in diameter need to
be removed, regardless of the height of the fill. However, large trees usually
receive special consideration and may be left in place at the discretion of the
engineer. In such cases, trees that overhang the roadway are usually required to be
properly trimmed to furnish clearance of 4.3 – 4.9 m.

All the combustible material removed from the designated area is generally
disposed by burning. Burning shall be carried out in proper place, time and
manner as to prevent fire from damaging vegetation and property within the road
reserve designated to be preserved. Where burning is not permitted at any time,
the combustible materials need to be disposed together with incombustible
material. These materials will be disposed in a safe and tidy manner at solid waste
dumps outside the site.

Clearing process in the urban areas normally takes longer time and involves
higher cost. In urban areas, before construction begins, relocations must be
arranged for people and business that are displaced and details worked out for
moving utilities without disrupting service. Then buildings, pavements, sidewalks
and other obstruction must be removed and surface utilities such as telephone and
power line that parallel or cross the right of way need to be relocated. Traffic
disruption also might be one of the problems that need to be minimizing during
road construction in urban area. Alternative route need to be prepared with a
proper signage to ensure the continuity flow of traffic without disruption and also
the safety of the road user during road construction.

Excavation

Excavation is the process of loosening and removing earth or rock from its
original position in a cut and transporting it to a fill or to a waste deposit.This
should preferably be carried out immediately after top soil removal. Selection of
equipment depends on the nature of the material, how far it is to be moved and the

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method of disposal. Excavation can be divided into three types: roadway and
drainage excavation for structures and borrow excavation.

 Roadway and drainage excavation

Roadway and drainage excavation can be define as excavating and grading

of the roadway and ditches, including the removal and disposal of all
excavated material and all work needed for the construction and
completion of the cuts, embankments, slopes, ditches, approaches ,
intersections and similar portions of the work. Unsuitable and surplus
excavated material is disposed of. Excavated top soil is usually stockpiled
for later use on side slopes in cuts and on embankments.

If the soil forming the bottom of a cut is not suitable as the foundation for
the road pavement, it may be necessary to remove the soil and replace it
with satisfactory material.

In general for all types of earthworks, the rule is to work uphill, thus
allowing drainage from the working face, but in certain cases such as well
drained site or in very firm ground, the scrapper should work downhill.
The reason for this is to avoid any excessive pull on the scarper
(particularly when full) which could easily result in “snatching” or
“digging-in” of the scraper.

Slope in cutting shall also be trimmed mechanically to neat and even surfaces
which shall have gradients not steeper than shown in the drawings. Widths of
excavation shall not exceed the dimensions shown on the drawings. Cuttings also
normally left with the final 300mm of excavation above the formation level in situ
until the last possible moment as earth is its own best protector.

Sometimes, the excavation to formation level may be lower than the natural water
table. In this case, the road side drains should be laid before excavation started.
The provision of this drainage can be most useful in lowering the water table so
that the ground water does not affect the road construction.

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In order to determine amounts of cut and fill at particular locations along the line
of the road, the mass-haul diagram were used. The mass-haul diagram is a simple
graphical representation of the earthworks in road scheme, and of the way which
they can be most economically handled. It shows the algebraic accumulation of
earthworks volume at any point along the proposed centreline and from this the
economical directions of haul and the positioning of borrow pits and spoil heaps
can be worked out.

Soil Stabilization

 Soil stabilization is a process to increase the strength or performance of

soil as construction material.
 Stabilize soil has more strength.
 Stabilized soil can be used as sub-base pavement.
 There are three ways of soil stabilization which are mechanical, physical
and chemical.

Mechanical

 Compaction

Physical method

 Drainage sand
 Electromosis
 Additional
 Temperature stabilization

Chemical

 Stabilizing Cement
 Stabilizing lime
 Stabilizing Bitumen
 Stabilizing salt

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Compaction machinery

 Smooth wheel roller

 Goat’s foot roller
 Pneumatic tyred roller
 Vibrating roller

Compaction increases the density of a material by expelling air from the voids in the
material and thereby bringing the particles into more intimate contact with each other.
Compaction is the cheapest and simplest method for improving the shearing
resistance of soil and minimizing future settlements. Therefore, soils in embankments
and subgrades in cutting are usually compacted using special compacting equipment,
such as rollers, vibrators or tampers. The result of compaction work depends primarily
on the moisture content of the soil, the type of the soil, the compaction equipment
used and the energy applied.

The determination of the optimum bitumen content of any soil to be used as

embankment or subgrade material is necessary before any field work is commenced.
Compaction test shall be used in determining the moisture versus density relation of
soil. This can be done as a laboratory testing. Next, the field compaction trials will be
carried out and the optimum moisture content at which each soil type shall be used as
a guide in determining the proper moisture content at which each soil type shall be
compacted. If the natural water content of suitable material is too high for the proper
compaction to be carried out, the contractor can either bring down the moisture
content by aeration or drying or alternatively replace it with suitable materials likely
to be encountered shall be completed before the works with the corresponding
material will be allowed to commence.

After the compaction work has complete, field density tests on each layer of
compacted soil need to be done in order to check the quality of work. Measurements
of field density are made during soil investigation, but most measurements are taken
to assist with compaction control during construction. Several methods are used for
determining field density, namely core cutter method, sand replacement method and
nuclear density gauge method.

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The sand cone or sand replacement method is widely used to determine the density
compacted soils. A sample is removed by hand excavation of a hole in the soil. The in
situ volume of the sample is then determined by measuring the volume of dry, free
flowing sand necessary to fill the hole. A special cone is used to pour the sand into the
hole. The dry mass of the sample is determined in the laboratory. The method is not
recommended for soils that are soft, friable or in a saturated condition. The method is
rather time consuming.

Figure 2.4: Sand cone method

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