Notable Heavy Civil Projects

Saddle Road East Side

FHWA  HI SR 200(3)

The road was paved with a 5-inch thick asphalt layer, divided into two lifts: a 3-inch Marshall mix (36,000 tons) and a 2-inch SuperPave mix (24,000 tons). The 52-foot wide road used pull widths of 20-feet, 12-feet, and 20-feet for most of the project.

Materials included PG64-22 asphalt binder from Asphalt Hawaii and PAR Hawaii on Oahu, transported to Hawaii Island. Aggregate was sourced from the Pohakuloa Training Area quarry, with a portable plant brought to the island for production. Located 30 miles from the project at milepost 38, PTA posed challenges in truck availability for paving production. Equipment included belly dumps, a Roadtec Shuttle Buggy, CAT AP1000E paver, and Dynapac and CAT rollers. RHB's use of belly dumps, uncommon in Hawaii due to frequent road intersections and driveways, was suited for this project's minor access roads.

North Haiwee Dam

LADWP 7805

LADWP awarded Road and Highway Builders a $135 Million contract to construct a new dam in Olancha, California to replace the existing Haiwee Dam constructed in the 1930's that failed to meet seismic requirements. The dam is part of the Los Angeles Aqueduct system which transports water from the Eastern Sierra Mountains to Los Angeles for drinking water and power generation. Over 860,000 cubic yards of material was excavated and processed to re-align the existing aqueduct and construct the new dam. In order to construct the dam in an alluvial area lacking in bedrock, a stable foundation had to be constructed utilizing Cement Deep Soil Mixing. This process consists of mixing cement grout with the native materials down to a depth of 55 feet for a solid foundation. The new dam is then constructed of 550,000 cubic yards of engineered Zoned Materials consisting of core, filters, and drain zones.

Carson Freeway Phase 3

NDOT 3585

Some of the major aspects of the $42 million dollar project, were over one million cubic yards of excavation and embankment, constructing nearly 3 miles of precast concrete sound walls, 20,000 linear feet of storm drain piping, 150,000 cubic yards of aggregate base, 100,000 tons of asphalt paving, 9,918 square yards of concrete paving, 31,775 linear feet of concrete barrier rail, connecting it all together with the constructing of a new four-way signalized intersection on the south end connecting US 50, Carson Street, and I-580. One of the major challenges of the project was how to get over 700,000 cubic yards of excavated material from the new freeway alignment to the disposal site across existing Hwy 395. Concerned with the impacts to the traveling public during this phase of the project, Road and Highway Builders felt that there had to be a safer way to move the material than using on highway semi-trucks. So an extensive series of conveyor belts were installed to carry the material nearly half of a mile across the busy thoroughfare and parallel to US 50 to the dumpsite. RHB worked with the NDOT to re-design some of the planned drainage features to increase the final hydraulic capacity and could be used as a tunnel to temporarily allow a 36” wide conveyor belt to be placed under the existing highway.