First, the answer to Vol. 24 (last week).
I hope everyone here in the United States had a safe Independence Day! I was a bit bummed out that I didn’t partake in putting flame to fuse – it was just too hot and humid where I was at (something I never thought I would say years ago).
Ashan was spot on in his observations. The issue is desiccation cracks in the compacted clay liner subgrade. Given the depth of these shown by my fingers on the pin flag (approximately 0.2’), as well as the width, the proper remedy would be to disc the lift to a depth below the cracking, add moisture while disking, and recompact/retest, prior to regrading.
How many of you see this remedy on your project? I often see contractors take shortcuts (allowed by engineers) where they water the surface and smooth drum roll the surface which does not heal cracking of this magnitude.
The best remedy is to prevent this by having a desiccation prevention plan in place and properly implemented. Again, this is often overlooked, and as long as contractors are allowed to take remediation shortcuts that do not fix the problem, many will continue to do so.
In these blog posts, Do You See What Glen Sees, I will present a photograph or short video related to earthwork or geosynthetics construction and have you identify the significance of what you’re seeing.
It could be things being done correctly or incorrectly. Primarily, these will be things that impact quality.
In addition to my blog, I’ll post this content on X and LinkedIn. You can post your response on one of those two.
I’ll give you my thoughts on each photo or video when I post the next installment.
Do you see what I see? Or did you find something I missed? I’m excited to find out!
