Steps for Construction of Earth roads

Hi, today I am going to share with you the steps which are necessary for
the construction of the earth roads:

General :
First of all what is an earth road? Earth road is a type of road whose
whole pavement section is constructed with the locally available earth
material preferably. Borrow pits are located at the nearby sites preferably
outside the land width where, the required earth is available.
Sub-grade and the surface of the earth roads are given larger camber of
1in 33 to 1 in 20 because they need faster drainage to be safe from the
moisture. A maximum value of camber of 1 in 20 is the limit because
higher camber will result in the formation of cross ruts and corrosion of
pavement soils.

Specifications of Materials:
The earth material used for the construction of earth roads are termed as
satisfactory if they possess the following properties:
Base Course
Wearing
Course
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Clay content
<5%
10 to 18%
Silt content
9 to 32%
5 to 15%
Sand content
60 to 80%
65 to 80%
Liquid limit
<35%
<35%
Plasticity Index
<6%
4 to 10%

Construction steps(Procedure):
1.
Material: Suitable borrow pits are located by doing the survey of
the adjacent land which are easy to reach and at economical haulage
distance. The various organic materials like trees, shrubs and grass roots
are removed before the excavation of the earth.

2.
Location of the center line: The center line and the road
boundaries are marked on the ground by driving the wooden pegs. To
follow the desired vertical profile of the road, reference pegs are also
driven at a certain spacing which depends upon the estimated length of
the road construction per day.
3.
Preparation of the sub-grade: Following steps are necessary for
the preparation of the sub-grade:
(a) Clearing site
(b)
Excavation and construction of fills
(c)
Shaping of sub-grade
The site clearance may be done manually using appliances like spade,
pick and hand shovel or using the mechanical equipment like Bulldozer
and scraper etc.
Excavation and
construction of fills may also be done manually or using the excavation,
hauling and compaction equipment. Dozers are considered very useful
for haulage of short distances. If the compaction is done manually it will
not be sufficient and proper, it should be left to get consolidated under
atmospheric conditions. Various equipment used by manual labor are
shovel, spade, pick-axe, baskets, rammers and hand rollers.
The sub-grade should be compacted to the desired
grade, camber and longitudinal profile.
4.
Pavement construction: The soil is dumped on the prepared subgrade and pulverized. The soil may be a mixture of more than one soil to
get the desired properties. The moisture content is checked and if extra
moisture is needed, is added to bring it to OMC.
The soil is mixed, spread and rolled in layers such that the compaction
thickness of each layer does not exceed 10 cm. The type of roller for
compaction is decided based on soil type, desired amount of compaction
and availability of equipment. Atleast 95% of dry density of I.S. light
compaction is considered desirable. The camber of the finished surface
is checked and corrected when necessary.
5.
Opening to traffic: The compacted earth surface is allowed to dry
out for few days and then is opened to traffic.