Thread: Road construction and repairs

Originally Posted by Norton

Originally Posted by nidhogg

And the inflated contract gets issued to repair it every year. Kickbacks all round. Everybody happy and productive, except the whining farang.

Agree. Standard cycle but after a visit to US last year the roads in Thailand are better than in many areas in the US.

As the U.S. is basically broke and have lessened federal funds for roads, motorways, etc and general civil infrastructure - which is crumbling before them.

They do seem to find the illusional cash for war, military, subsidizing and bailing out corporations, etc....

Priorities.

Even though funds are tight for US roads, they are still better than Thai roads which is what I originally disagreed with Norton about. Also, construction methods are much better than Thailand's which was the original topic. We seem to have strayed a bit.

Originally Posted by Pragmatic

Originally Posted by jimbobs

concrete roads are the way to go in Thai flexible road construction is abysmal

Only providing the concrete is laid to specification, which is highly unlikely. When working with concrete or tarmac to construct roads etc slump tests have to be taken on site on batches of material. I've never seen it.
Thais just love to pour as much water into their concrete as they can as it's easy to push it around. Too much water and the stone sinks to the bottom leaving sand on the upper surface which wears away within a short period of time.

Procedure of Concrete Slump test:

1. The mold for the slump test is a frustum of a cone, 300 mm (12 in) of height. The base is 200 mm (8in) in diameter and it has a smaller opening at the top of 100 mm (4 in).
2. The base is placed on a smooth surface and the container is filled with concrete in three layers, whose workability is to be tested .
3. Each layer is temped 25 times with a standard 16 mm (5/8 in) diameter steel rod, rounded at the end.
4. When the mold is completely filled with concrete, the top surface is struck off (leveled with mould top opening) by means of screening and rolling motion of the temping rod.
5. The mould must be firmly held against its base during the entire operation so that it could not move due to the pouring of concrete and this can be done by means of handles or foot - rests brazed to the mould.
6. Immediately after filling is completed and the concrete is leveled, the cone is slowly and carefully lifted vertically, an unsupported concrete will now slump.
7. The decrease in the height of the center of the slumped concrete is called slump.
8. The slump is measured by placing the cone just besides the slump concrete and the temping rod is placed over the cone so that it should also come over the area of slumped concrete.
9. The decrease in height of concrete to that of mould is noted with scale. (usually measured to the nearest 5 mm (1/4 in).

I've got a bit of an idea myself I am a civil engineer working as a site manager on the £800m job in Aberdeen.
The concrete they batched and brought to my house was fine, I asked for 70 slump and got it.
I am not saying the QC in place would be great but the tarmac roads are shit

My dear wife informs me that rural roads in our locale come under two independent administrations; orbitor and head men.
Beautiful well constructed road not ½ kilometer away..Multi layers of rolled road base, sprayed with tar then black topped..Even has yellow lines, speed limit signs and little white or yellow poles for some reason. Built by orbitor. Strange ½ kilometer section where it T bones to the road past our farm..Still just a narrow track.. it don’t have pot holes?


Road past our house..(headman department)…rolled last week and was looking good then along came the caterpillar drainage ditch diggers for the third time..Churned up now, big potholes and piles of dirt middle of road..Probably be completed then along will come the water pipe people…


Of course some of us may remember the Brit way of doing things when multiple levels of government involved:

First the water board creates havoc by digging up a road...Fixes whatever, fills it in patches road. Next along comes the gas board..same road same new hole same place same repair..Then along comes the electricity board…..55

Originally Posted by jimbobs

Originally Posted by Pragmatic

Originally Posted by jimbobs

concrete roads are the way to go in Thai flexible road construction is abysmal

Only providing the concrete is laid to specification, which is highly unlikely. When working with concrete or tarmac to construct roads etc slump tests have to be taken on site on batches of material. I've never seen it.
Thais just love to pour as much water into their concrete as they can as it's easy to push it around. Too much water and the stone sinks to the bottom leaving sand on the upper surface which wears away within a short period of time.

Procedure of Concrete Slump test:

1. The mold for the slump test is a frustum of a cone, 300 mm (12 in) of height. The base is 200 mm (8in) in diameter and it has a smaller opening at the top of 100 mm (4 in).
2. The base is placed on a smooth surface and the container is filled with concrete in three layers, whose workability is to be tested .
3. Each layer is temped 25 times with a standard 16 mm (5/8 in) diameter steel rod, rounded at the end.
4. When the mold is completely filled with concrete, the top surface is struck off (leveled with mould top opening) by means of screening and rolling motion of the temping rod.
5. The mould must be firmly held against its base during the entire operation so that it could not move due to the pouring of concrete and this can be done by means of handles or foot - rests brazed to the mould.
6. Immediately after filling is completed and the concrete is leveled, the cone is slowly and carefully lifted vertically, an unsupported concrete will now slump.
7. The decrease in the height of the center of the slumped concrete is called slump.
8. The slump is measured by placing the cone just besides the slump concrete and the temping rod is placed over the cone so that it should also come over the area of slumped concrete.
9. The decrease in height of concrete to that of mould is noted with scale. (usually measured to the nearest 5 mm (1/4 in).

I've got a bit of an idea myself I am a civil engineer working as a site manager on the £800m job in Aberdeen.
The concrete they batched and brought to my house was fine, I asked for 70 slump and got it.
I am not saying the QC in place would be great but the tarmac roads are shit

Frick! Really! I never knew that!..Amazing what the professional civil engineering degree syllabus includes....

Originally Posted by thaimeme

Originally Posted by jimbobs

^ concrete roads are the way to go in Thai
flexible road construction is abysmal

Sounds great in theory, Jimbo.
But as you might know, concrete/cement tends to be much more expensive and harder to come by for extensive public projects.....that's why one will find common asphalt or a metal/tar mix for roading material the most desirable worldwide.

There's only so much processed cement products to go around and dearer to the purse - used in other capacities.

From a Euro perspective it is not that simple.
cemantacious/concrete roads are actually cheaper to put in, but a lot more expensive to remove and maintain.
Asphalt roads do something concrete roads won't do, and that is flex.
If water gets under concrete, and it freezes, or you have not got your expansion joints right you are in a world of pain.
Modern bituminous products are an absolute pain to make, SMA, or stone mastic asphalt
Has to be dried and heated to around 180celsius which takes loads of fuel/ energy.
The ops pics are are of a machine from Germany, Wirtgen is their name and recycling is their game.
Great bits of kit by the way.
What it's trying to to do is mix the sub base with cement to provide stability 'strength'
It is a cheap, cheerful and ' green'
What it will not do is compensate for the crap that is underneath it.
It's a bit like spraying a car,
Sub grade.
Sub base .
Road base.
Base course/binder course.
Wearing course/ surface course.
Preparation is the key.
And in Thailand protecting the thing from water (expensive).

The Canadians east of the Rockies have similar road building methods. Compacted soil with a tarmac topping. There it's more frost heave than water flow which causes problems long term.

Better than the corrugated gravel ones though.

Originally Posted by tj916

What it's trying to to do is mix the sub base with cement to provide stability 'strength'

Not quite right really as they are not trying to mix the cement with the sub-base. They are actually trying to mix the cement powder with the scarified wearing course. Then a colas/bitumen adhesive solution is applied before a wearing course is applied.

Originally Posted by tj916

Originally Posted by thaimeme

Originally Posted by jimbobs

^ concrete roads are the way to go in Thai
flexible road construction is abysmal

Sounds great in theory, Jimbo.
But as you might know, concrete/cement tends to be much more expensive and harder to come by for extensive public projects.....that's why one will find common asphalt or a metal/tar mix for roading material the most desirable worldwide.

There's only so much processed cement products to go around and dearer to the purse - used in other capacities.

From a Euro perspective it is not that simple.
cemantacious/concrete roads are actually cheaper to put in, but a lot more expensive to remove and maintain.
Asphalt roads do something concrete roads won't do, and that is flex.
If water gets under concrete, and it freezes, or you have not got your expansion joints right you are in a world of pain.
Modern bituminous products are an absolute pain to make, SMA, or stone mastic asphalt
Has to be dried and heated to around 180celsius which takes loads of fuel/ energy.
The ops pics are are of a machine from Germany, Wirtgen is their name and recycling is their game.
Great bits of kit by the way.
What it's trying to to do is mix the sub base with cement to provide stability 'strength'
It is a cheap, cheerful and ' green'
What it will not do is compensate for the crap that is underneath it.
It's a bit like spraying a car,
Sub grade.
Sub base .
Road base.
Base course/binder course.
Wearing course/ surface course.
Preparation is the key.
And in Thailand protecting the thing from water (expensive).

Not much freezing water to deal with in Thailand though.