Old timer showed me a trick for leveling cribbing on soft ground

I was out on a job near the river last month, setting up a 50 ton crawler on ground that was just mush. I kept sinking in, spending like an hour readjusting pads. Then an old guy named Frank walks over and says, 'Try laying down a layer of crushed asphalt first, pack it down with the tracks.' I did it and that pad held solid the whole lift, no settling at all. Has anyone else used crushed asphalt like that on soft jobsites?

2 comments

2 Comments

hayes.elliot9d ago

Frank's trick with crushed asphalt is something I read about in a crane operator's forum a while back (I think it was from a guy working on pipeline jobs in Texas). They said the asphalt binds together when you run over it hot from the sun, kind of like a natural mat. I haven't tried it myself since I mostly work on gravel lots, but it makes sense for that mushy riverbank soil you were dealing with. The only thing I'd watch out for is if the asphalt gets really wet, it might turn into a slick mess on tracked machines, but Frank obviously knew what he was doing.

paul_lane809d ago

Oh yeah, @hayes.elliot, I think you're right about it binding but it's actually the oil in the asphalt that seals it, not just the heat.