Geofoam is a new lightweight earthworks technique used to build a bridge overpass on weak soil near Montreal.
Military use
Earthworks ditch and rampart in Germany - age prehistorical prior to 300 BC
In military engineering, earthworks are, more specifically, types of fortifications constructed from soil. Although soil is not very strong, it is cheap enough that huge quantities can be used, generating formidable structures. Examples of older earthwork fortifications include moats, sodwalls, motte-and-bailey castles, and hill forts. Modern examples include trenches and berms.
Excavation of over 76 million cubic metres (23 million cubic metres of which was additional to the planned amount due to landslides) for the Culebra Cut, Panama canal construction photo taken c.1907
Engineers need to concern themselves with issues of geotechnical engineering (such as soil density and strength) and with quantity estimation to ensure that soil volumes in the cuts match those of the fills, while minimizing the distance of movement. In the past, these calculations were done by hand using a slide rule and with methods such as Simpson's rule. Earthworks cost is a function of hauled amount x hauled distance. The goal of mass haul planning is to determine these amounts and the goal of mass haul optimization is to minimize either or both.[2]
Now they can be performed with a computer and specialized software, including optimisation on haul cost and not haul distance (as haul cost is not proportional to haul distance).
Cut and fill– Earthmoving technique to minimize labor
Earth movers– Vehicles designed for executing construction tasksPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets, construction/engineering vehicles used for earthworks civil engineering
Earth structure– Building or other structure made largely from soil
Earthworks (archaeology)– General term to describe artificial changes in land level in history and pre-history
Earthworks cut and fill map and estimation summary produced by Kubla Cubed
Earthwork software is generally a subset of CAD software, in which case it often an add-on to a more general CAD package such as AutoCAD.[3] In that case, earthwork software is principally used to calculate cut and fill volumes which are then used for producing material and time estimates. Most products offer additional functionality such as the ability to takeoff terrain elevation from plans (using contour lines and spot heights); produce shaded cut and fill maps; produce cross sections and visualize terrain in 3D.[4] The means by which volumes are calculated in software can differ quite considerably leading to potentially different results with the same input data. Many software products use methods based on triangulated irregular networks (TINS) and triangular prism volume algorithms, however other calculation methods are in use based on rationalizing elevations into high density grids or cross-sections.[5][6][7]
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