ACPA Concrete Pavement Progress - Winter 2022-23

WWW.ACPA.ORG 11 Winter // 2022–23 DIVIDED HIGHWAYS (RURAL) US 69 Southbound Reconstruction Atoka/Bryan County, Oklahoma CONTRACTOR: Duit Construction Co., Inc.* OWNER: Oklahoma Department of Transportation ENGINEER: Oklahoma Department of Transportation SILVER US Highway 20 Black Hawk County, Iowa CONTRACTOR: Cedar Valley Corp.* OWNER: Iowa Department of Transportation ENGINEER: Iowa Department of Transportation U.S. Highway 69 It is one of the most traveled U.S. highways by freight truckers in the country, starting from the ports of Houston, Texas, going through Kansas City, Kansas, and Des Moines, Iowa. The US-69 Caney Project was a full pavement rehabilitation of the old 6.61-mile, two-lane southbound highway. The $20.6 million project was finished ahead of schedule as a result of the commitment by the Oklahoma Department of Transportation to work side-by-side with Duit Construction to quickly mitigate issues as they developed. Because Oklahoma has seen new records for heat and cold in previous seasons, the contractor proactively prepared for potential weather issues by incorporating heaters and chillers when batching concrete during harsh temperatures in the weather-impacted months. By shifting traffic onto the northbound side of the highway, the contractor could work on the subgrade and structural section with no impact from the traveling public. To further increase the speed of construction, Duit used three portable crushers to crush the existing concrete in place. The crushed concrete could then be placed in the new structural section of the pavement as an aggregate base. By crushing the concrete in place, no trucking was needed to move the broken concrete, and it was only handled once. The total number of lane miles for the project was 13.2, and 157,318 square yards of concrete were placed. Proactive planning and phasing enabled the contractor to finish 65 days earlier than ODOT planned while also accomplishing a Ride Specification/ Result using ODOT 0.0 Blanking Band, of an averaged 19.5 inch/mile and 55% of ride incentive was achieved. The Black Hawk-US Highway 20 project entailed 3 miles and 177,000 square yards of paving, including 56,018 square yards of tied concrete shoulders. Cedar Valley Corp. was able to positively impact the quality of the project before it was even put up for bid. Plan review by CVC noticed that the detour envisioned by the Iowa Department of Transportation was 5 miles long and included numerous stops and narrow lanes. Working with the City of Waterloo’s engineer, IDOT’s detour was changed. CVC’s input also resulted in the addition of two ramp entrances, two ramp exits, and four gore areas to the project to improve overall paving quality. Replacing a planned HMA patching with a thin, full-width HMA overlay for the lanes that would serve as a detour for eastbound traffic improved the route and CVC re-designed the joint detail for ramp configuration to allow for machine versus hand pours. The project also included two major innovative studies; the first was rumble strips installed with stacked saw blades instead of a regular milling head to reduce damage to pavement and create a more uniform final product. The second was a pilot project for IDOT to study potential new compaction specifications. The results of the study led to a long list of lessons learned, updated training, reporting data, and target values. GOLD

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