Compaction at a Highway Off-Ramp
These photos are from the construction of a highway off-ramp in Davis, California, in 1995. This relatively small earthwork job was performed with very few pieces of equipment (a cat, water truck, grader, and the trucks that transported fill soils to the site).
This cat is equipped with a blade for shaping the roadway and sheepsfoot rollers for compacting the clayey soils. Fill materials were brought to the site by trucks that spread the materials out in roughly 6 to 8 inch thick layers. The cat spread the material out evenly and compacted it at the same time.
A side view of the cat.
The water truck sprays the earth during compaction to condition the soil to near its optimum moisture content for compaction, and to control dust at the site.
The operators of the water truck and cat sequence their passes across the site. A grader was later used for final shaping of the roadway surface.