GBA-Member Firm performed construction materials engineering and testing (CoMET) services for a new nine-story hospital. Another firm’s geotechnical report recognized the pavement subgrade would include poorly graded soil-rock fill and recommended a bearing ratio that the GBA Member Firm recognized as a “worst case” for design purposes. It became apparent early in the grading process that the fill should produce a higher bearing ratio.  This conclusion, based on field observations made during construction, proved to be correct. Despite a lack of precedent, the GBA-Member Firm recognized an opportunity to save the owner a significant amount on asphalt paving costs by reducing pavement section thickness.  This resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars of savings.

California Bearing Ratio (CBR) ; CoMET; Conformation-Dependent Recommendations; earthwork conditions ; fill ; flyrock ;geotechnical engineer of (GER) ; limestone bedrock; pavement ; plate load tests ; residual clay  soil-rock fill ; subgrade