Back | Table of Contents | Next

Engineering

Deep Patching Saves Money on Road Repairs

Many Forest Service roads are past their design lives and in dire need of reconstruction. Fill materials often have deteriorated, settled, or crept downhill, cracking and dislodging the pavement. One solution is using a deep patch to repair these distressed road embankments. The deep patch is a limited-depth earthwork method that uses geosynthetic-reinforced soil materials. The technique is much less expensive than other methods, such as the construction of retaining structures. Deep patching provides a reasonable measure of stability and reduces maintenance costs.

An application guide from SDTDC will review how deep patching has been used in the past and explain how to analyze common road conditions related to problems with fill. Using a series of easy-to-understand graphs, the guide will recommend the depth requirements and reinforcement strengths to use when designing a deep patch. This guide will be available in 2005.

USDA Forest Service and U.S. Department of the Interior Bureau of Land Management employees can access the SDTDC engineering program's Web site at:
http://fsweb.sdtdc.wo.fs.fed.us/programs/eng/

For more information about deep patch reconstruction, contact Charles Aldrich, project leader (phone: 909–599–1267, ext. 281; e-mail: caldrich@fs.fed.us).

Back | Table of Contents | Next

  | E-mail this link