FORE423-21S2 (C) Semester Two 2021

Forest Transportation and Road Design

15 points

Details:
Start Date: Monday, 19 July 2021
End Date: Sunday, 14 November 2021
Withdrawal Dates
Last Day to withdraw from this course:
  • Without financial penalty (full fee refund): Sunday, 1 August 2021
  • Without academic penalty (including no fee refund): Friday, 1 October 2021

Description

Evaluation and comparison of options for the transport of forest products. Review of soil engineering characteristics and low-cost methods to determine the bearing capacity of subgrade soils. Vehicle/road interaction. Legal regulations for heavy vehicles operating on New Zealand public roads. Forestry truck and trailer designs and their impact on load capacity and vehicle safety. Road design for forest roads and the design of low-cost water crossings and drainage structures. Application of RoadEng road design software. Cost estimation and contract management for road construction.

This course covers two broad closely related topic areas, being forest transportation as well as forest (or low-volume) road design. For transportation it provides for evaluation and comparison of options for the transport of forest products. It moves to legal regulations for heavy vehicles operation on New Zealand public roads, and then covers forestry truck and trailer designs and their impact on load capacity and vehicle safety. To link the two parts of the course vehicle / road interaction is investigated. For the roads part of the course it reviews soil engineering characteristics and low-cost methods to determine the bearing capacity of subgrade soils. Road design for forest roads and the design of low-cost water crossings and drainage structures are taught. RoadEng road design software is the used to design a trial section of road, and the project includes cost estimation and contract management for road construction.

Topics covered include: Regulations pertaining to forest trucking; road location, design and construction; road geometric design; contracts, construction supervision, earthwork volume calculations; strengthening forest roads; truck/road interaction; truck specifications and allowable loads;  alternative transportation methods in forestry.

The course makes use of Softer RoadEng and ArcMap GIS software.

Learning Outcomes

  • Students who successfully complete this course will:
  • Understand basic geotechnical engineering concepts and know how to conduct and evaluate low-cost soil engineering tests.
  • Understand the stress-strain effect that vehicle loads have on the road pavement.
  • Be aware of New Zealand heavy vehicle public road limits and understand the effect that these limits have on load capacity.
  • Recognise different truck configurations used in forest operations.
  • Understand the behaviour of heavy vehicles on roadways (including roll-over, off-tracking, cornering) and understand mitigating design approaches.
  • Understand the principles of contract management for typical forest road construction projects.
  • Estimate the cost of road construction for a typical forest road.
  • Be able to perform a P-line survey and design the layout of a forest road using Softer RoadEng software.
  • Understand the use of granular pavement design algorithms to calculate the required pavement thickness for a forest road.
  • Be able to determine the appropriate culvert size for a specified waterway, and be able to correctly describe the culvert installation procedure.
  • Be able to design a drainage network for a forest road in steep terrain
  • Understand the use of Best Management Practices (BMPs) for forest roads to reduce sediment inputs to streams

Prerequisites

FORE205 or FORE305

Restrictions

ENFO423

Timetable Note

This course wil has a scheduled lab or field trip each week. Attendance at labs and field trips is compulsory. Times and dates for labs and field trips will provided on the course schedule at the commencement of term.

Course Coordinator

Rien Visser

Lecturer

Campbell Harvey

Assessment

Assessment Due Date Percentage 
NES/Road Engineering Manual Critique 10%
Road Planning Assignment 10%
Culvert Design Test 10%
Road design group assignment 15%
Course participation 5%
End-of-Year Exam 50%

Textbooks / Resources

There is no prescribed text for this course, a number of relevant texts will be provided via Learn.

Indicative Fees

Domestic fee $1,114.00

International fee $4,938.00

* All fees are inclusive of NZ GST or any equivalent overseas tax, and do not include any programme level discount or additional course-related expenses.

For further information see School of Forestry .

All FORE423 Occurrences

  • FORE423-21S2 (C) Semester Two 2021