Page 355 - Moving the Earth_ The Workbook of Excavation

ROADWAYS

ROADWAYS 8.17

FIGURE 8.11 Topsoil stripping.

Logs placed at the toe of the fill are useful in catching rolling boulders and checking slides.
These, or more elaborate precautions, are often required to protect roads or structures below. They
may be held by their own weight, by resting against stumps, or by cables and anchors. They may
be used as temporary expedients in most work.
Stumps left intact in steep fill areas may serve to prevent the completed fill from sliding down-
hill as a mass. Specifications often permit leaving them if they will be covered 2 or 3 feet deep.
If a sidehill is cleared and stripped, the areas to be filled should be plowed or roughened across
the slope to reduce the danger of slides.
Dozer Digging. If the side slope is gentle, the road shelf may be cut by pushing downhill.
Steeper slopes may be started in the same manner and finished by working along the road line, as
in Fig. 8.12.
In general, when the upper bank becomes so steep that the dozer cannot back up it without
assistance, it is more economical to work from the side. However, if the line of cut is interrupted
by rock ribs, which are not to be blasted until the softer parts of the road are made, a dozer with
a helper cable may be used to cut benches in each section, at least long enough to permit it to start
a sidecasting cut.
Pushing from above, where practical, is faster than sidecasting.

Sidecasting. The standard method of notching a steep sidehill is to sidecast with a dozer. A
wide-track, close-coupled dozer with a blade that can be tilted to cut low on the uphill side is most
efficient. An angling blade, set with the uphill side low and angled to cast down the hill, is useful,

FIGURE 8.12 Starting sidehill cut with dozer.