Expedient Road Construction Over Sands Using Lightweight Mats

摘要

This report describes field experiments conducted using lightweight mats for expedient road construction over sands. Field sections were constructed and trafficked over a poorly graded sand (SP) subgrade. Experiment items were trafficked with 5,000 passes of a 41,600 lb, 5 ton military truck. Experiment results showed that an aluminum hexagonal mat, a plastic hexagonal mat, and a fiberglass reinforced mat are capable of providing structural support to military traffic over sand subgrades. An unreinforced and a reinforced plastic mesh mat were not capable of withstanding the applied traffic and are unsuitable for supporting substantial amounts of military traffic.