I love this video with more geotechnical and engineering behind the why's of a project. The general public has miniscule knowledge of things like soil science. Thanks for sharing and keep up the good work.
In forestry in East Texas we call it “shrink-swell” clay- because it does just that. Roads and crossings are always a pain when dealing with these soil series. Great video explaining this from someone with multiple soil science classes! Well done Aaron.
I use to operate a drill rig here in Utah and have drilled down in southern Utah in blue clay several times. Blue clay is the worst. There were times we would drill 1ft and would fill an 5ft test tube full of blue clay because of how expansive the material is.
Clay is a problem in many parts of the country. I know of a warehouse in Michigan that you enter at the front door and then it is about a 4 foot elevation drop to walk down to the service counter. The warehouse is huge covering acres and the clay beneath the structure has slowly dehydrated over the years causing the clay to shrink. In Texas the normal is if you have a big box store, Home Depot or Walmart there is a sprinkler system laid out below the warehouse prior to construction. So that water can be seeped into the soil under the building to keep the total moisture content of the clay at a constant percentage.
I was in a crawl space under a house where Clay soil had contracted. There were deep fissures in the clay about 2-3" wide at the top. The center of that house section had dropped by about 2" due to the ground settling below it. This is western KS.
We've got a lot of clay in Canada, but it tends to be a rather thin layer. The only places where you find thick layers are large river bassins such as the St-Laurence. Because it is such a thin layer in mountainous areas, the tendency is to just dump it in the nearest hole and burry it with rock from the rest of the excavation. With the amount of rock being put on top to level the terrain, the clay just gets compressed and is mostly a non-factor.
Blue clay/heaving clay is a pain to work with. I drill water wells in the southern utah region and come across heaving clay alot. We have to use special mud mixtures to make sure we seal off the clay so it doesnt expand on us.
I see the big haulers every day, since my housing subdivision north of St. George is surrounded on three sides by new developments being leveled. They use the water trucks to try to dampen the ground to keep the dust to tolerable levels. If you see a smoke plume in St. George’s sky, it’s new housing! Now I know what’s happening to the south of us, so thanks!
Yeah, what happens if the dirt or the Clay doesn’t do what they wanted to do you know what I mean what happens if that Clay either dries out or tats on even more water than what and expand even more
@@steveanderson4768 geologist here, yes exactly.... geotechnically bentonite is used because of it's expansive properties. however, bentonite consists of many different types of clay particles all with a different expansion coefficient. The most important one is montmorrilonite, which expands to a multitude of it's original size under water. So depending on local areas and for example the montmorillonite content the expansive properties of the soil can vary significantly, leading to new ripples etc. A proper way would be to remove the bentonite clay and fill it up with normal non expanding soil until it is so thick, that the swelling pressure of the bentonite can't be bigger than the weight pressure of the topsoil and thus can't expand.. I think the company just want's new contracts in this case. the fact that they got through the first time and didn't have any huge lawsuits is astounding or didn't check the geology beforehand, it's not that it isn't a common phenomenon or rare in utah and as a local company they should have expertise...
McAninch Corporation out of Iowa were one of the first earthmoving contractors who had soil engineers on staff and designed a mobile lab enabling the engineers to travel from job site to job site evaluating soil samples and conditions daily then work side by side with Ziegler Caterpillar to develop and build the most effective and efficient earth moving systems for their job sites. The majority of their work deals with heavy clay soils and when contractors bid certain jobs without soil conditions knowledge it can quickly bankrupt them. They run s Cat D11’s configuration for towed Cat 651 Scraper Pans which they develop in house, Cat D10’s towing Cat 641 Scraper Pans and Cat D9’s towing Cat 631 Scraper Pans. This eliminates the need for push dozers for the scrapers and graders for haul road maintenance.
I used to work for a home builder, we ran across a neighborhood with expansive clay about 15-20 feet deep. Wasn’t found on geotech reports prior to development because reports usually only run about 10ft deep in that region. Long story short, the builder had to buy back several homes in the neighborhood because the foundations started moving. I lived in one the houses for a short period of time, the living room was 3” lower than the kitchen because the entire house had rolled or pitched to one corner.
In East TX under a sandy, loam topsoil we have expansive clay that creates foundation issues as seasons cycle through dry and wet seasons. Because of this you will not find a basement under a house here.
hah this is great. I remember the runway construction, we were upset they took away the "jump" in the runway. It was fun when I'd do my cockpit fam rides. JP is also a few blocks down from me working on a massive residential development. Out here, they have to deal with a bunch of lava rocks and lava tubes which I imagine just makes everything harder. Cool video!
I had a home around St. George built on blue clay. The home would crack all over, repair the cracks and the next spring they would come back bigger. A nightmare.
One of my favorite areas of Utah to go trail riding. The terrain does change dramatically, extremely and suddenly. Sand Hollow has the most difficult sand I have ever drove on anywhere in the US. Stock 4x4 vehicles have problems getting stuck in the parking areas near the lake, let alone trying to go offroad. 38"+ tires and another equal offroad vehicle, is safest way to travel the area offroad; pull each other out. Matts Offroad and Trailmater; I will be there in March too. Moab is also great; I love Glenn Canyon.
Me too! This type of activity is way out of my price range, but I absolutely love love love watching the MORRVAIR! I volunteered last year and am signed up to help out again! You are 💯 about the sand out there. I backed my 2015 Ford Transit van off of the blacktop and sunk up to the frame instantly! I wasn't too worried about finding someone to pull me out, seeing how there must have been 2000 4x4s there with wenches and ropes.
I know this company. (In fact my brother worked on the air port runway for 18 months) … anyway, this company takes exceptional care of their equipment. If there is a leak, they’ll notice it. On a side note, I liked there previous color scheme better : JP red on CAT yellow…
They’ve been having this same problem on I-40 at the AZ/CA line with the clay expanding and shrinking. They’re digging down and repaving again what they’ve done countless times since I was a kid
A lot of people don’t realize that soil compaction has to be done at the right % of moisture depending on the amount of clay, sand, silt, organics etc in the soil. Usually sand or bankrun is used for stuff like this. I’m surprised they didn’t put in stone mats once they got down to the clay that the dcp determines is hard enough to start the base and build it up in 8”-12” lifts until a big roller can be used and lay 18” lifts.
Hi Aaron I'm from st George Utah and jp excavating is one of tha biggest companies out here and our clay and sand make building infrastructure almost impossible we have to transport normal dirt and grade it over sand but don't help alot
do you guys not do atterberg testing and shrink / swell assessments? a significant % of the uk has clay and we do it for everything job and for the most part design foundations to account for the movement potential
Another very impressive video of an industry that is probably not well-known to large parts of the public. Have you ever considered making videos about the (geophysical) exploration part of such large building or mining projects? It would be more "ExploreWitt" than "BuildWitt" but it is a massive, probably even poorer known industry of its own with sometimes hughe exploration campaigns on land, sea and in the air. For example even for - comparable small - science projects we were deploying hundreds of seismic sensors in geothermal fields in Iceland and over volcanic areas in Hawaii or drilled a few dozen holes through Swiss Glaciers. Industrial scale projects range from 10s to 1000s of sensors over hughe areas. Very impressive and mostly in beautiful landscapes...
@@Baddecisionsjkurthey went with the cheapest bid. How many times does that come back to bite ya in the ass… plus they spread the burden on the whole state to fund it, as well as federal grants. It made a lot of people a lot of money the first go around, and a lot the second go round… all at the expense of the of you and I.
@@nieldcreek2098 was stating that if the Feds had done what they were told the first go around by local geotech they would not have had to do it twice. The second round was literally the way they were told by local geo engineers that have decades of experience with our soils but they were ignored the first time and exactly what they said would happen happened.
I live in Drumheller Alberta. Aka the badlands and it's called the badlands for a reason. Lots of bentonite. House foundations barely last 50 years here. Roads get re paved and completely fucked again in 10 years
There is an ancient fault line here in Texas name the Balcones Fault. West of the fault there is hard limestone to build on. East of the fault there is blackland soil with a layer of clay underneath. Anything built on that has to either dig down below the clay or, for buildings with a concrete slab, pilings driven down to bedrock.
We deal with expansive clay in the Houston area all the time. Lime stabilization of the expansive clay would have lowered the plasticity index . Was there a soils report done before construction began? Did the contractor even read it? 😂
FAA was told this was the correct way to do it. Feds thought they knew better. It was a major uproar here. Literally the fix was the way they were told to do it in the first place.
When I was flying helicopters out of Nellis down in Vegas we flew to St.George. We shot an approach to this runway because my co pilot was very confused which airport we were supposed to be shooting an approach to. 😂
I have friends in St George Utah who have built homes in the blue clay. They opted to not spend the additional 30 grand to have their foundations put on piers instead of a slab. After only a few years, they were already having settlement and upheaval issues. I'm from Kentucky. The clay we have there is horrible, but it doesn't seem to be as bad as the stuff in Southern Utah.
My kid did geotechnical testing for a while. He was taught a very good example of the size difference between clay and sand. If you have one particle of sand, and it’s the size of your house then one particle of clay would be the size of a soccer ball.
Sorry, not round like a socker ball. Clay particle is a flat platelet, more like a Frisbee, to stay with a sport analogy. However, at this micro scale the tiny electric charges on the surface of the clay platelets repell the so that the platelets are all jumbled up with gaps in between. Water is added to "optimum moisture content" for compaction so that the clay platelets are smeered and become parallel. With out the air spaces between the clay platelets, the clay becomes impermeable. However if the clay dries out, it will start to crack and the clay returns to jumbled condition, then it shrinks and swells again. Aron, you did see this in your videos of the construction of the inline water storage for Murrumbidgee Irrigation in NSW Australia. Hope this helps.
homes built on clay use cable stress systems and floating slabs to allow movement and the plumbing isnt brought direct through concrete there is space to allow floating
Absolutely engaging with this issue with heavy clay, turns out organic matter, gypsum and worms do a good job, but to be fair we're agri so very different context, and have none of those funds! It turns out pumping the water out is also good option
I wonder if that expansive clay could be troublesome with some of the new housing developments being built along Highway 7 that's along the outer edges of St. George and Washington City? New residential communities are popping up quickly in the region, some within eyesight of the St. George airport.
If you want to drive on a road that has this problem really badly. Come drive on the moore cut off road in emery county Utah. It's only about 15 years old but super ruff.
So you are making the soil moist enough to build with it. But you’re doing this in the southwest of America which is known deserts. Which means that the soil will dry out over time and then it will rain and swell again
Obviously, the first time they built this runway, they did a shit job. Clay, by its very nature is waterproof when compacted properly. Moisture shouldn't have been able to get under the runway in the first place. On another note, you might do a video on the runway in Inuvik, NT, Canada. There, the biggest problem is permafrost. They have just done a major expansion, and it is not going well at all. It's a cluster .... caused by incompetent engineering, typical of infrastructure projects in the heavily politicized north.
FAA was told this was the correct way to do it. Feds thought they knew better. It was a major uproar here. Literally the fix was the way they were told to do it in the first place.
California has a lot of expansive clay. In many areas, this clay can make a vacant lot not buildable because normal septic systems don't work on expansive clay without adding "perkable material."
If they are doing all of this testing, why didn't they do that extensive testing prior to dropping the coin on the original runway. These guys are hoovering up 26 mil on this project sounding smart and confident. In less than 10 years there will be another project - probably 40 mil - to redo the runway where it's clear that Mother Nature doesn't want one. This story makes me facepalm. Trucks are cool though.
FAA was told this was the correct way to do it. Feds thought they knew better. It was a major uproar here. Literally the fix was the way they were told to do it in the first place.
Honestly don't know why they didn't catch all of this the 1st time, anyone and everyone even the guy thst works the shovel knows the characteristics of clay. What a waste of money! I think the original engineering firm and contractor should be held financially responsible for this expensive repair and should be disbarred from overseeing or doings any future projects.
FAA was told this was the correct way to do it. Feds thought they knew better. It was a major uproar here. Literally the fix was the way they were told to do it in the first place.
Cool stuff! The audio mixing seemed to be off somewhat in this episode, feels like every spoken part was a different volume and the music was way louder than the commentary.
@AaronWitt All good. It was fun seeing our yard in the background in the Rio Tinto train episode when you were here in Karratha. If I knew I would've bought you a pint
Blue clay was already there. FAA was told this was the correct way to do it. Feds thought they knew better. It was a major uproar here. Literally the fix was the way they were told to do it in the first place.
@ kinda says the people at the FAA didn’t do high school geography and science, I’m no geotechnical engineer but when I look at a mountain range I know there’s something to pay attention to
Don't buy a house in North Slope of Copper Rock (the foundations are already moving) and always check the geological information for the blue clay before buying a house in Southern Utah.
So the new housing developments that are currently being built all around that airport should be ok? Hopefully they are doing the same treatment before they build? Does anyone know anything about this?
It’s amazing that airport all those smart people when they first started building the runway oh it’s perfect. We did exactly what the engineer said but probably some equipment operator going. This is gonna be a “bucket fuck out here in a few years“ they were right pay for that expensive mistake.
Close, FAA was told this was the correct way to do it. Feds thought they knew better. It was a major uproar here. Literally the fix was the way they were told to do it in the first place.
Geology is so fascinating. The earth forms things over millions of years and modern machinery can come in and move it around at this volume. Do these kind of digs ever enlist an archeologist to check for historical items? Or are the machines so large they crush anything?
I love this video with more geotechnical and engineering behind the why's of a project. The general public has miniscule knowledge of things like soil science. Thanks for sharing and keep up the good work.
thanks for watching glad you enjoyed!!
His unscripted efforts in describing this in sync with the video are appreciated. VERY good.
12:42 the string of aerial shots of the scrapers _hauling_ combined with the slow-mo cuts was mesmerizing.
thank you glad you enjoyed!!
I'm just here to agree.
At first show, I thought the footage was sped up because they're booking it!
In forestry in East Texas we call it “shrink-swell” clay- because it does just that. Roads and crossings are always a pain when dealing with these soil series. Great video explaining this from someone with multiple soil science classes! Well done Aaron.
I use to operate a drill rig here in Utah and have drilled down in southern Utah in blue clay several times. Blue clay is the worst. There were times we would drill 1ft and would fill an 5ft test tube full of blue clay because of how expansive the material is.
thats nuts
Remember silly string? That's what I'm picturing.
Does it make good pottery?
Clay is a problem in many parts of the country. I know of a warehouse in Michigan that you enter at the front door and then it is about a 4 foot elevation drop to walk down to the service counter. The warehouse is huge covering acres and the clay beneath the structure has slowly dehydrated over the years causing the clay to shrink. In Texas the normal is if you have a big box store, Home Depot or Walmart there is a sprinkler system laid out below the warehouse prior to construction. So that water can be seeped into the soil under the building to keep the total moisture content of the clay at a constant percentage.
I was in a crawl space under a house where Clay soil had contracted. There were deep fissures in the clay about 2-3" wide at the top. The center of that house section had dropped by about 2" due to the ground settling below it. This is western KS.
Have been working dirt since 75 , you do a great job presenting the work , very well done , look forward to you’re videos
Thank you very much I appreciate you watching
I worked on that project. It was a massive undertaking but the repair has held.
We've got a lot of clay in Canada, but it tends to be a rather thin layer. The only places where you find thick layers are large river bassins such as the St-Laurence. Because it is such a thin layer in mountainous areas, the tendency is to just dump it in the nearest hole and burry it with rock from the rest of the excavation. With the amount of rock being put on top to level the terrain, the clay just gets compressed and is mostly a non-factor.
Blue clay/heaving clay is a pain to work with. I drill water wells in the southern utah region and come across heaving clay alot. We have to use special mud mixtures to make sure we seal off the clay so it doesnt expand on us.
I see the big haulers every day, since my housing subdivision north of St. George is surrounded on three sides by new developments being leveled. They use the water trucks to try to dampen the ground to keep the dust to tolerable levels. If you see a smoke plume in St. George’s sky, it’s new housing! Now I know what’s happening to the south of us, so thanks!
if the engineers are wrong, that’s a very expensive mistake.
Yeah, what happens if the dirt or the Clay doesn’t do what they wanted to do you know what I mean what happens if that Clay either dries out or tats on even more water than what and expand even more
@@steveanderson4768 geologist here, yes exactly.... geotechnically bentonite is used because of it's expansive properties. however, bentonite consists of many different types of clay particles all with a different expansion coefficient. The most important one is montmorrilonite, which expands to a multitude of it's original size under water. So depending on local areas and for example the montmorillonite content the expansive properties of the soil can vary significantly, leading to new ripples etc. A proper way would be to remove the bentonite clay and fill it up with normal non expanding soil until it is so thick, that the swelling pressure of the bentonite can't be bigger than the weight pressure of the topsoil and thus can't expand.. I think the company just want's new contracts in this case. the fact that they got through the first time and didn't have any huge lawsuits is astounding or didn't check the geology beforehand, it's not that it isn't a common phenomenon or rare in utah and as a local company they should have expertise...
The music junked another video 👎👎👎👎💩💩😬
@@Dank_Giraffe as with anything geological in nature, just give it some time.
Exactly. I can't believe they aren't lime treating it to stabilize it. This is gonna be a disaster.
McAninch Corporation out of Iowa were one of the first earthmoving contractors who had soil engineers on staff and designed a mobile lab enabling the engineers to travel from job site to job site evaluating soil samples and conditions daily then work side by side with Ziegler Caterpillar to develop and build the most effective and efficient earth moving systems for their job sites. The majority of their work deals with heavy clay soils and when contractors bid certain jobs without soil conditions knowledge it can quickly bankrupt them. They run s Cat D11’s configuration for towed Cat 651 Scraper Pans which they develop in house, Cat D10’s towing Cat 641 Scraper Pans and Cat D9’s towing Cat 631 Scraper Pans. This eliminates the need for push dozers for the scrapers and graders for haul road maintenance.
I love those McAninch machines. A Cat and can will do the work of several other pieces of equipment.
@ and no bouncing around destroying your back while driving those rubber tired scrapers. 👍
I used to work for a home builder, we ran across a neighborhood with expansive clay about 15-20 feet deep. Wasn’t found on geotech reports prior to development because reports usually only run about 10ft deep in that region. Long story short, the builder had to buy back several homes in the neighborhood because the foundations started moving. I lived in one the houses for a short period of time, the living room was 3” lower than the kitchen because the entire house had rolled or pitched to one corner.
In East TX under a sandy, loam topsoil we have expansive clay that creates foundation issues as seasons cycle through dry and wet seasons. Because of this you will not find a basement under a house here.
here in california we use floating cable reinforced slabs, is it the same there?
I never knew how bad the clay was here until I started working in clay pits
@@gallardoo9 I was told it is used sometimes for large commercial projects like big box stores or warehouses but not in residential due to high cost.
Love this as a scraper operator in Colorado, would be great to show this to new guys to they understand why we do what we do the way we do it here
hah this is great. I remember the runway construction, we were upset they took away the "jump" in the runway. It was fun when I'd do my cockpit fam rides. JP is also a few blocks down from me working on a massive residential development. Out here, they have to deal with a bunch of lava rocks and lava tubes which I imagine just makes everything harder. Cool video!
Great Company who does top notch work. They are in our community. Enjoyed this video!
That paint makes them look like military equipment 😊
I had a home around St. George built on blue clay. The home would crack all over, repair the cracks and the next spring they would come back bigger. A nightmare.
One of my favorite areas of Utah to go trail riding. The terrain does change dramatically, extremely and suddenly. Sand Hollow has the most difficult sand I have ever drove on anywhere in the US. Stock 4x4 vehicles have problems getting stuck in the parking areas near the lake, let alone trying to go offroad.
38"+ tires and another equal offroad vehicle, is safest way to travel the area offroad; pull each other out.
Matts Offroad and Trailmater; I will be there in March too. Moab is also great; I love Glenn Canyon.
Me too!
This type of activity is way out of my price range, but I absolutely love love love watching the MORRVAIR!
I volunteered last year and am signed up to help out again!
You are 💯 about the sand out there.
I backed my 2015 Ford Transit van off of the blacktop and sunk up to the frame instantly!
I wasn't too worried about finding someone to pull me out, seeing how there must have been 2000 4x4s there with wenches and ropes.
My favorite UA-camr doing a video on the airport only a mile from my house.
Nice!
you're too kind
Paint scheme looks awesome but I imagine it makes spotting small oil leaks during quick inspections difficult
Also the dark scheme will absorb heat causing the machine to run hotter.
I know this company. (In fact my brother worked on the air port runway for 18 months) … anyway, this company takes exceptional care of their equipment. If there is a leak, they’ll notice it. On a side note, I liked there previous color scheme better : JP red on CAT yellow…
That swell clay should be pulverized, dried & used for plugging earthen drill holes or for pond sealer.
Redmond clay is just that!
My hats off to ur video and drone operator awesome shots
Thank you Mike
Love how much content comes out of Utah.
They’ve been having this same problem on I-40 at the AZ/CA line with the clay expanding and shrinking. They’re digging down and repaving again what they’ve done countless times since I was a kid
A lot of people don’t realize that soil compaction has to be done at the right % of moisture depending on the amount of clay, sand, silt, organics etc in the soil. Usually sand or bankrun is used for stuff like this. I’m surprised they didn’t put in stone mats once they got down to the clay that the dcp determines is hard enough to start the base and build it up in 8”-12” lifts until a big roller can be used and lay 18” lifts.
Hi Aaron I'm from st George Utah and jp excavating is one of tha biggest companies out here and our clay and sand make building infrastructure almost impossible we have to transport normal dirt and grade it over sand but don't help alot
do you guys not do atterberg testing and shrink / swell assessments? a significant % of the uk has clay and we do it for everything job and for the most part design foundations to account for the movement potential
I live here in St. George! Cool to see videos about our town
Same and I work at the airport so its cool to see
Another very impressive video of an industry that is probably not well-known to large parts of the public.
Have you ever considered making videos about the (geophysical) exploration part of such large building or mining projects? It would be more "ExploreWitt" than "BuildWitt" but it is a massive, probably even poorer known industry of its own with sometimes hughe exploration campaigns on land, sea and in the air. For example even for - comparable small - science projects we were deploying hundreds of seismic sensors in geothermal fields in Iceland and over volcanic areas in Hawaii or drilled a few dozen holes through Swiss Glaciers. Industrial scale projects range from 10s to 1000s of sensors over hughe areas. Very impressive and mostly in beautiful landscapes...
They knew! My nephew worked for one of the geo companies. But St.George went with the cheaper estimate.
I don’t understand how they didn’t see this coming, I suppose everyone’s got time and money to do it right the second time.
They do it right because they do it twice!😂😂
My guess is they said ehh we’ll try it if it doesn’t work we’ll fix it then😂
FAA didn’t follow local geotech recommendation the first time. They thought they knew better than the locals that work with it daily.
@@Baddecisionsjkurthey went with the cheapest bid. How many times does that come back to bite ya in the ass… plus they spread the burden on the whole state to fund it, as well as federal grants. It made a lot of people a lot of money the first go around, and a lot the second go round… all at the expense of the of you and I.
@@nieldcreek2098 was stating that if the Feds had done what they were told the first go around by local geotech they would not have had to do it twice. The second round was literally the way they were told by local geo engineers that have decades of experience with our soils but they were ignored the first time and exactly what they said would happen happened.
Good video. Also the paint schemes on JP 's machines look awesome.
yeah it looks mean!
It's humbling to see the quantities of dirt being moved. Makes my job site look like a toy sand pit. I like the custom painted bulldozer for sure too.
5:16 - Whoever designed the graphics deserves a medal-seriously iconic!
Agreed super dope
I live in Drumheller Alberta. Aka the badlands and it's called the badlands for a reason. Lots of bentonite. House foundations barely last 50 years here. Roads get re paved and completely fucked again in 10 years
There is an ancient fault line here in Texas name the Balcones Fault. West of the fault there is hard limestone to build on. East of the fault there is blackland soil with a layer of clay underneath. Anything built on that has to either dig down below the clay or, for buildings with a concrete slab, pilings driven down to bedrock.
The music at 530 was awesome.
Very cold just about freezing, He hasn’t seen cold.
We deal with expansive clay in the Houston area all the time. Lime stabilization of the expansive clay would have lowered the plasticity index . Was there a soils report done before construction began? Did the contractor even read it? 😂
FAA was told this was the correct way to do it. Feds thought they knew better. It was a major uproar here. Literally the fix was the way they were told to do it in the first place.
Heyy! I work at the St. George airport and commute on that road right next to the project by the airport. Awesome seeing your content here!
When I was flying helicopters out of Nellis down in Vegas we flew to St.George. We shot an approach to this runway because my co pilot was very confused which airport we were supposed to be shooting an approach to. 😂
Wow you really ought to check out HEI Civil in Colorado. So many parallels with JP.
Never have I seen so much raw kitty litter ore in one video lol
Who needs that stupid airport in the middle of nowhere?
I have friends in St George Utah who have built homes in the blue clay.
They opted to not spend the additional 30 grand to have their foundations put on piers instead of a slab.
After only a few years, they were already having settlement and upheaval issues.
I'm from Kentucky. The clay we have there is horrible, but it doesn't seem to be as bad as the stuff in Southern Utah.
My kid did geotechnical testing for a while. He was taught a very good example of the size difference between clay and sand. If you have one particle of sand, and it’s the size of your house then one particle of clay would be the size of a soccer ball.
That’s an awesome comparison
Sorry, not round like a socker ball. Clay particle is a flat platelet, more like a Frisbee, to stay with a sport analogy. However, at this micro scale the tiny electric charges on the surface of the clay platelets repell the so that the platelets are all jumbled up with gaps in between. Water is added to "optimum moisture content" for compaction so that the clay platelets are smeered and become parallel. With out the air spaces between the clay platelets, the clay becomes impermeable. However if the clay dries out, it will start to crack and the clay returns to jumbled condition, then it shrinks and swells again.
Aron, you did see this in your videos of the construction of the inline water storage for Murrumbidgee Irrigation in NSW Australia.
Hope this helps.
Nice work witt
homes built on clay use cable stress systems and floating slabs to allow movement and the plumbing isnt brought direct through concrete there is space to allow floating
The fuel truck looks like a moving oil spill, aviation is a little different.
Good thing you aren't visiting the crew down at the Troll south pole station :P
why not just use underground bore watering/irrigation
too keep the clay moist at all times. then there is no more expansion?
Doesn’t work with our type of clay and soil structure.
4:42 lol JP Performance - like the german car youtuber :D
Absolutely engaging with this issue with heavy clay, turns out organic matter, gypsum and worms do a good job, but to be fair we're agri so very different context, and have none of those funds! It turns out pumping the water out is also good option
This is the reason why that airport was supposed to be built in cedar
I wonder if that expansive clay could be troublesome with some of the new housing developments being built along Highway 7 that's along the outer edges of St. George and Washington City?
New residential communities are popping up quickly in the region, some within eyesight of the St. George airport.
If you want to drive on a road that has this problem really badly. Come drive on the moore cut off road in emery county Utah. It's only about 15 years old but super ruff.
So you are making the soil moist enough to build with it. But you’re doing this in the southwest of America which is known deserts. Which means that the soil will dry out over time and then it will rain and swell again
Obviously, the first time they built this runway, they did a shit job. Clay, by its very nature is waterproof when compacted properly. Moisture shouldn't have been able to get under the runway in the first place.
On another note, you might do a video on the runway in Inuvik, NT, Canada. There, the biggest problem is permafrost. They have just done a major expansion, and it is not going well at all. It's a cluster .... caused by incompetent engineering, typical of infrastructure projects in the heavily politicized north.
FAA was told this was the correct way to do it. Feds thought they knew better. It was a major uproar here. Literally the fix was the way they were told to do it in the first place.
mr witt. any updates on the big dam project.
This reminds me of the movie acrophobia. You have bad wood. What should I do? Put in good wood. 🤣🤣🤣
Holy crap Aaron’s talking about my town.
asuh
California has a lot of expansive clay. In many areas, this clay can make a vacant lot not buildable because normal septic systems don't work on expansive clay without adding "perkable material."
Why not use lime and mix it in like they do for highways.
If they are doing all of this testing, why didn't they do that extensive testing prior to dropping the coin on the original runway. These guys are hoovering up 26 mil on this project sounding smart and confident. In less than 10 years there will be another project - probably 40 mil - to redo the runway where it's clear that Mother Nature doesn't want one. This story makes me facepalm. Trucks are cool though.
FAA was told this was the correct way to do it. Feds thought they knew better. It was a major uproar here. Literally the fix was the way they were told to do it in the first place.
QUESTION:
Is QUICKLIME, or hydrated, calcium lime also being used to stabilize subbase materials?
Honestly don't know why they didn't catch all of this the 1st time, anyone and everyone even the guy thst works the shovel knows the characteristics of clay. What a waste of money! I think the original engineering firm and contractor should be held financially responsible for this expensive repair and should be disbarred from overseeing or doings any future projects.
FAA was told this was the correct way to do it. Feds thought they knew better. It was a major uproar here. Literally the fix was the way they were told to do it in the first place.
Cool stuff! The audio mixing seemed to be off somewhat in this episode, feels like every spoken part was a different volume and the music was way louder than the commentary.
10-4 we're working on dialing that in for future videos!! Thanks for watching
@AaronWitt All good. It was fun seeing our yard in the background in the Rio Tinto train episode when you were here in Karratha. If I knew I would've bought you a pint
next time
Took me a minute to see "exPANsive" not exPENsive" Why is expensive clay a nightmare? Just buy the cheap stuff!
expansive clay is expensive
I built a concrete skateboard park in St George about 5 years ago
I haven’t been back to check it out, but I hope it’s not doing the same thing.
awesome
It’s still perfect!
You would think an on site engineer would have stopped the blue clay fill in the original runway.
Blue clay was already there. FAA was told this was the correct way to do it. Feds thought they knew better. It was a major uproar here. Literally the fix was the way they were told to do it in the first place.
You simply need deeper footings or switch to drilled piers, we also have clay issues here in Calif.
Inspiring video. Wish I had a job as an operator.
Michigan has plenty of blue clay as well. Normally, we had to dry it out instead of adding water too it.
Desert vs noon-desert
How did they not know, you literally look at the mountains in the background and you can see the different layers.
Geotech told them but FAA thought they knew better.
@ kinda says the people at the FAA didn’t do high school geography and science, I’m no geotechnical engineer but when I look at a mountain range I know there’s something to pay attention to
Don't buy a house in North Slope of Copper Rock (the foundations are already moving) and always check the geological information for the blue clay before buying a house in Southern Utah.
So the new housing developments that are currently being built all around that airport should be ok? Hopefully they are doing the same treatment before they build? Does anyone know anything about this?
It’s amazing that airport all those smart people when they first started building the runway oh it’s perfect. We did exactly what the engineer said but probably some equipment operator going. This is gonna be a “bucket fuck out here in a few years“ they were right pay for that expensive mistake.
Close, FAA was told this was the correct way to do it. Feds thought they knew better. It was a major uproar here. Literally the fix was the way they were told to do it in the first place.
Geology is so fascinating. The earth forms things over millions of years and modern machinery can come in and move it around at this volume.
Do these kind of digs ever enlist an archeologist to check for historical items? Or are the machines so large they crush anything?
Somebody had a fun night in Vegas the night before lol
nah it's just Vegas in general that saps the energy from you... I don't do Vegas Vegas anymore
Ha 17 feet is the magic number in St. George. Stupid.
Thank for going into depth on this !!
@@joakeson13 i’m sure somebody pulled that number out of their a-s just like they did with the Covid mask malarky.
2:33 lol 390 loading right over the cab
There is 32 million in dirt work going on at the Amazon distribution center in Wilmington a good friend of bon Joby is the superintendent on the job
Hell yeah i need to get my dozer hand to start pushing me through the cut so i can get my two scrapers loaded faster lol
Wouldn’t the clay shrink when it dries out and cause the same kind of problems?
Where did you bought the toys which are in front of you?
What do think a matt foundation is for.
Lime and cement stabilisation would fix this
only if the surface was the issue which it wasn't -- stabilization works only in 1' lifts
37 is cold?
What is that at 4:50? Gas station working with gravity?
Water tower
They should have called Dirt Perfect in the first place!😃😁😋
Cool video. Like the way this was edited together.
thank you
Looks like JP is killing the game
Why did the airport have to go here?
Riverview llps new site in North Dakota would be worth visiting
If they made the whole runway out of clay then the airplanes could simply land in the ruts. Very precise, very cool.
Hey Aaron you should check out the mine in lake Elsinore California
Also sick sunglasses
I must say I've never seen a wheeled dozer.
Can always appriciate a company who custom paint their equipment. Totally unnecessary but its really nice!