Better Roads Digital Magazine
Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/85916
Applications & Innovationsby Tina Grady Barbaccia Heavy Road Work Full depth reclamation saves aging roads struggling under heavy fracking loads W hen energy companies began driving heavy truck traffi c over rural Pennsylvania roads not built to withstand the weight, the state's DOT charged a local contractor with rehabilitating and upgrading the road with a full-depth reclamation, cement stabilization project. And the energy companies working to fi nd natural gas pitched in and reached for their checkbooks. The practice of deep well hydraulic fracturing – more commonly known as "fracking," – is a way to tap into natural gas resources that the nation so badly needs. But the fracking process requires a heavy drilling equipment and a massive amount of water –5.6 million gallons for the typical Marcellus well, according to a May 2011 Chesapeake Energy fact sheet. The wells are often located in rural areas. This means hun- dreds of truck trips carrying large amounts of fresh water to the jobsite and then additional trips to remove waste water from the drilling process. The roads for the heavy water trucks were not built to handle such heavy traffi c. In rural Pennsylvania, this heavy truck traffi c on aging roads not designed for them, caused further road deterioration, according to local agencies. Energy companies with stakes in the Marcellus and Utica deep shale gas reserve development in that area decided to help pay for upgrades on the rural high- ways and secondary roads they needed to access. 32 May 2012 Better Roads Investment in State Route 1077 to was needed so that it could withstand the heavy truck traffi c. Asphalt and cement, take 2 The family-owned Cortland, N.Y.-based Suit-Kote Corp. was charged with upgrading 45 miles of state highways, "farm- to-market," and secondary roads. To rehabilitate the roads, Suit-Kote used full-depth reclamation (FDR) to dry grind the existing asphalt road as well as a portion of the sub-base material. A second pass with a reclaimer/stabilizer (a Terex RS600 and RS950) was then used to blend portland cement and water with the pulverized material to create a stabilized base for fresh asphalt. Prior to using the reclaimer/stabilizer on the road, Suit-Kote made 4-foot passes, 9 inches deep on both sides of the road. "All of this material was able to be saved and used later in the project," Paul Suits, vice president of Suit-Kote Corp., tells Better Roads. "It was all nicely milled materials that we were able to use for shoulder backup and culvert material fi lling. By re-using the asphalt that was dry ground and milled and putting it back into the mix, Suits estimates nearly $100,000 may have been saved. Suits says his team dry ground the entire road 15 inches deep and then lightly compacted it. Suit-Kote then went back in and reground the road 15 inches deep. "On the second