Industry Sector & Application:

Mining Solutions – Mine Haul Road

Location:
Northern Ontario

Featured Products:
Swamp Grid™

Featured Services:
Product Supply

Product Category:
Soil Reinforcement & Stabilization


Project Overview

Mine haul roads are essential to the functionality, profitability, and safety of a mine. A poorly designed mine haul road can cost active mines millions of dollars, jeopardizing the site’s continued operation. To avoid continuous rehabilitation of the road, a strategic design that considers the characteristics of the subgrade soil is a must.

The following application involved the construction of mine haul roads in Nothern Ontario, which were built on compacted clay with blast rock/granite. These haul roads extended into a mine pit, providing passage for rock dump trucks weighing several hundred tonnes.

The presence of compacted clay with blast rock/granite meant that roads would be unreinforced at the interface of the sub-base and subgrade. Taking this challenge into consideration, Titan Environmental recommended the use of Swamp Grid™ 40, one of our signature soil reinforcement and stabilization geogrids. This provided our client with significant cost savings by allowing them to use far less aggregate and ensured lasting functionality of the mine haul roads to keep operations running smoothly.

The main challenge in this project was the presence of compacted clay with blast rock/granite base. We knew this implied the following:

  • The roads would be unreinforced at the interface of the sub-base and the subgrade, giving rise to lateral movement of particles.
  • Rise of lateral movement particles would cause upward movement of the subgrade fines by pumping action, resulting in sub-base failure.
  • Repetitive heavy dump truck traffic also meant that heavy dynamic loads would be concentrated over the weak subgrade, resulting in higher differential settlement.

The Conventional Solution

The conventional solution for this challenge would consist of using 1.0m of compacted crushed rock backfill (aggregate base) over the compacted clay subgrade. This approach would require repeated use of aggregate, costing our client time and money, in addition to causing environmental damage.

Titan’s Geogrid Solution

Considering the characteristics of the subgrade soil in this scenario, both reinforcement and separation functions were important for optimal haul road performance. To ensure this, Titan Environmental proposed a solution which consisted of our Swamp Grid™ 40 installed at the bottom of the aggregate base layer.

Swamp Grid™ 40 is a biaxial geogrid bonded to a continuous filament nonwoven geotextile by a precision heat bonding process. The geogrid acts as reinforcement, whereas the geotextile works as a soil separator and filter to prevent contamination of the aggregate base by fines from the subgrade.

In this haul road application, using Swamp Grid™ 40 created the following benefits:

  • Better reinforcement, drainage, and filtration of the sub-base, which helps maintain stability of the soil structure.
  • Allowed for a thinner aggregate base that was easier to place and compact.
  • Minimized the loss of aggregate into the soft subgrade during construction.
  • Prevented penetration of individual aggregate particles into the soft subgrade under repeated traffic loads.

This solution provided our client with cost savings of over $1 million by allowing them to use far less aggregate base (0.7 m thick vs. 1.0 m), while helping to reduce impact on the environment.

Swamp Grid™ 40 Specifications

Swamp Grid™ 40 is extremely effective for stabilizing saturated soils that are susceptible to piping and preventing loss of imported granular material into the soft subgrade. We have broken down some of the Swamp Grid™ 40 specs below:

  • Swamp Grid™ 40 is a bi-axial polypropylene (PP) geogrid bonded to a continuous filament nonwoven geotextile separator by a precision heat bonding.
  • It is manufactured using a punching and drawing process whereby the polypropylene sheet is stretched in two directions: machine (longitudinal) and cross-machine (transverse).
  • The result is a monolithic and isotropic geogrid with thick and wide ribs, thick integral nodes, and uniform square apertures.
  • The ribs have a high degree of molecular orientation continuing in part through the mass of the integral node.

Some benefits of Swamp Grid™ 40: 

  • Swamp Grid™ 40 geometry allows for strong mechanical interlock with soil particles and features high tensile stiffness at low strains to resist construction damage, environmental exposure.
  • It enhances the structural performance of pavement by increasing the Layer Coefficient Ratio (LCR), while the nonwoven geotextile effectively keeps expensive imported material from being contaminated by the migration of fines from the saturated base soils.
  • It is engineered to be mechanically and chemically stable in aggressive soil environments and formulated to resist UV degradation.
  • It is not susceptible to hydrolysis, environmental stress cracking and micro-organism attack.

For detailed product specifications on Swamp Grid™ 40, see our product spec sheet: Download Spec Sheet 

All our geogrid soil reinforcement and stabilization products are designed and manufactured in-house at ISO 9001 certified manufacturing facilities. They consistently meet demanding QA/QC requirements, are CE-certified, and are continuously tested to rigorous ASTM standards. 

All Titan Environmental product solutions are backed by comprehensive engineering and specialized technical support. Using the latest and advanced design software, we work with engineers and consultants all over the world and are happy to provide complimentary application specific preliminary designs. We can also provide detailed designing and working calculations including construction drawings, and crucial specification and installation details.

Explore what Swamp Grid™ 40 or any of our other geogrid soil reinforcement and stabilization products can do for you. Request a consultation using the form below.

We have project specialists who are ready to help! Request a consultation using the form below.


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