I drove by this section near Mirror Lake early last Saturday morning and you the tops of the excavators down in that hole were just about level with the highway grade. When I drove back through Sunday evening they had it built back up to grade. Paved it the next day. Our AK DOT boys and girls kick some a$$.
I have been shocked at how slow road construction progresses in the lower 48.
this has made the rounds in our office and I hear it's been on the Facebook.
They need to be careful; this could?ÿset a precedent and they will expect it every time....
Having spent a good part of my career on highway construction I've been fascinated watching the clips of the recent road repair up there.?ÿ But there are some nagging questions in the back of my mind.?ÿ Mainly I'm wondering if the existing in-situ?ÿsub-grade is frozen and?ÿif the borrow brought in to bring it back up to grade was frozen.
Down here in the temperate flats placing frozen borrow is a no-no.?ÿ The only other option is rock ballast?ÿdue to its low moisture content.?ÿ
I'm sure the crews in AK are?ÿvery well versed with?ÿtheir construction techniques and appear to have done a bang up job.?ÿ I'm just wondering if they regularly work frozen materials in the grade.?ÿ
@ aliquot
The highways are mostly well built for current standards.
They are destroyed by logtrucks and closed hauling twice the amount of weight allowed and designed for to the stockpile or warehouse.
This way they get paid by the load per normal load while carrying overweight that is full profit for the resellers.
Then the haul is divided into proper transport for distrubution or final destination.
Beaten down roads is from the heavy loads, not the number of vehicles.
Having spent a good part of my career on highway construction I've been fascinated watching the clips of the recent road repair up there.?ÿ But there are some nagging questions in the back of my mind.?ÿ Mainly I'm wondering if the existing in-situ?ÿsub-grade is frozen and?ÿif the borrow brought in to bring it back up to grade was frozen.
Down here in the temperate flats placing frozen borrow is a no-no.?ÿ The only other option is rock ballast?ÿdue to its low moisture content.?ÿ
I'm sure the crews in AK are?ÿvery well versed with?ÿtheir construction techniques and appear to have done a bang up job.?ÿ I'm just wondering if they regularly work frozen materials in the grade.?ÿ
Nothing significantly frozen. The frost has only penetrated a few inches in most places as temperatures have been on average at least ten degrees warmer than usual, which has been a blessing under the circumstances. Had this event occurred in February during one of 'normal' winters of a decade or two ago, would likely be a very different story.?ÿ
The temps have been near and above freezing during much of this work - non-frost susceptible (NFS) material appropriately compacted in these temps should do a good job of maintaining embankment shape/grade until things fully thaw in May or June. I believe that there is currently low moisture content NFS material available (and that it was used).?ÿ I suspect that there will be minor settlement in the spring but at that point the embankment will have done a large percentage of it's settling so if there is road damage after the thaw then dressing the grade and a repave will probably be a good-as-new fix for the rebuilt sections.
The section of road Williwaw mentions near Mirror Lake is currently paved and open at 65 mph - you can tell where the repairs are but they seem to be well done - hopefully the materials and compaction were adequate to take us through to spring.
However if we keep having strong aftershocks then all comments about embankment stability are off.
