Cut and fill

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Cut and Fill is the process of constructing a railway, road or canal whereby the amount of earth cut from cuttings roughly matches the amount of fill needed to make nearby embankments, so minimizing the amount of construction labor. This technique is widely practiced in mining applications.^[1]

Contents 1 Cut section 2 Fill section 3 Software 4 References

[edit] Cut section

Cut slopes are rarely created greater than a slope of two to one (horizontal to vertical dimensions).^[2] Cut sections of roadway or rail are characterized by the roadway being lower in elevation than the surrounding terrain. From an operational standpoint there are unique environmental effects associated with cut sections of roadway. For example, air pollutants can concentrate in the ‘'valleys'‘ created by the cut section. Conversely noise pollution is mitigated by cut sections since an effective blockage of line of sight sound propagation is created by the depressed roadway design^[3].

[edit] Fill section

Fill sections manifest as elevated sections of a roadway or trackbed. Environmental effects of fill sections are typically favorable with respect to air pollution dispersal, but in the matter of sound propagation, exposure of nearby residents is generally increased, since sound walls and other forms of sound path blockage are less effective in this geometry.

[edit] Software

Software such as Quantm can be used to trial millions of likely routes, all the time calculating the balance of cut and fill.

[edit] References