Recycling Flood-Damaged Roads By Cement Stabilisation (Jul 1990)

During 1990 large inland areas of Queensland and New South Wales were devastated by severe floods. Considerable media attention was devoted to the effect of these floods on people and their property. Evacuation, flood-relief oDerations and subseauent rehabilitation of towns damaged by the floods were widely reported. One element of the infrastructure of these areas which was severely damaged and which required extensive rehabilitation was the road system. The roads in both these areas are typical of Australian rural roads: they have two lanes the pavement is usually about 200 mm thick built using local natural gravels, and the surface has a bitumen seal coat. As Dart of the overall road rehabilitation requirement a total of about 78 km (570 000 m+) of road has been rehabilitated by insitu cement stabilisation. Most of the work was carried out between October 1990 and May 1991. After the replacement of some material which was washed away (but not so as to raise the road above flood levels) the stabilisation process allowed all of the existing ground pavement to be re used, ie the road pavement was recycled In this way the roads were quickly and cost-effectively rehabilitated. this two Dart article describes the stabilisation