yaouk
Bronze Member
- Joined
- Dec 18, 2001
- Messages
- 52
- Location
- Yaouk, Snowy Mountains, Australia
- Tractor
- Dong Feng 254 (25 hp)
Repairing a dirt road is one thing, building a road over swamp is another.
I have about a 70 metre stretch of swampy ground that I needed to get vehicles across. It was covered in tussock grass. The mud is very, very deep; I actually don't know how deep but I know its over two metres! The New South Wales Lands Department would not allow any sort of digging or pipes or culverts because the wetland is protected under some UN agreement. I also was not crazy about digging the place up. I researched the benefits of geotextiles and geogrids but the ground was just too soft. So my only option was to utilise a flotation system much like a pontoon. If you can build a pontoon to drive cars over water, surely you could build a platform over mud. Trouble was the corrosive nature of that mud would decompose timber and even steel quite fast. Moreover, building a 70 metre road would take a lot of timber and steel!
Solution: I managed to get about 600 old car tyres, laid them flat on the ground (no digging) and bolted 'em together to form a kind of permanant form work. From overhead it looked like a column of "000000". You'd be surprised how eager tyre dealers are to get rid of these things. Moreover, tyres are extremely tough, environmentally stable, and they should last about 100 years in that mud. A row of about six or seven tyres makes about a width of 3.6m. A good width for such a long stretch. Then I got 100 tonnes of crushed concrete (25mm). This stuff has jagged edges and so locks in together quite well. And its small enough to give a smooth ride. Each tyre had to be packed tightly by hand, and that was mighty tough. The tyres act like formwork holding the aggregate together; end result is the whole shootin' match 'floats' on the surface. As a vehicle rolls over it, the natural tendency of mud is to splay out to the sides. The aggregate aslo tries to do this but the amazing strength of the tyres holds everything in place. What really surprised me is how well the thing works! (or maybe that it worked at all!) There are some holes underneath that twist tyres up and they break loose but I just rip those up and fill in with more aggregate. The Lands department were happy with this system because the hydraulics of the wetland system were not disturbed and because water can easily flow up and over and even through the aggregate. The vegetation is starting to return to the construction site after a few months and it does not look as ugly as it used to.
Surely this system is not for evryone but I was happy to utilise so much recycled (and clean) material to make my crossing. My estimates set the load rating at about 5 tonnes max. It could take more but it would cause damage.
Its always satisfying to do something bizarre, that works!
Merry Xmas
I have about a 70 metre stretch of swampy ground that I needed to get vehicles across. It was covered in tussock grass. The mud is very, very deep; I actually don't know how deep but I know its over two metres! The New South Wales Lands Department would not allow any sort of digging or pipes or culverts because the wetland is protected under some UN agreement. I also was not crazy about digging the place up. I researched the benefits of geotextiles and geogrids but the ground was just too soft. So my only option was to utilise a flotation system much like a pontoon. If you can build a pontoon to drive cars over water, surely you could build a platform over mud. Trouble was the corrosive nature of that mud would decompose timber and even steel quite fast. Moreover, building a 70 metre road would take a lot of timber and steel!
Solution: I managed to get about 600 old car tyres, laid them flat on the ground (no digging) and bolted 'em together to form a kind of permanant form work. From overhead it looked like a column of "000000". You'd be surprised how eager tyre dealers are to get rid of these things. Moreover, tyres are extremely tough, environmentally stable, and they should last about 100 years in that mud. A row of about six or seven tyres makes about a width of 3.6m. A good width for such a long stretch. Then I got 100 tonnes of crushed concrete (25mm). This stuff has jagged edges and so locks in together quite well. And its small enough to give a smooth ride. Each tyre had to be packed tightly by hand, and that was mighty tough. The tyres act like formwork holding the aggregate together; end result is the whole shootin' match 'floats' on the surface. As a vehicle rolls over it, the natural tendency of mud is to splay out to the sides. The aggregate aslo tries to do this but the amazing strength of the tyres holds everything in place. What really surprised me is how well the thing works! (or maybe that it worked at all!) There are some holes underneath that twist tyres up and they break loose but I just rip those up and fill in with more aggregate. The Lands department were happy with this system because the hydraulics of the wetland system were not disturbed and because water can easily flow up and over and even through the aggregate. The vegetation is starting to return to the construction site after a few months and it does not look as ugly as it used to.
Surely this system is not for evryone but I was happy to utilise so much recycled (and clean) material to make my crossing. My estimates set the load rating at about 5 tonnes max. It could take more but it would cause damage.
Its always satisfying to do something bizarre, that works!
Merry Xmas