Abstract

The Champlain Sea Basin in eastern Canada is known for its sensitive clay and associated engineering problems through this much-developed area along the St Lawrence River. Geologically, the surface of the Champlain clay has been subjected to desiccation, frost action, and weathering. This has resulted in the reduction of the water content and sensitivity of the surficial crust layer of this very wet clay deposit sufficiently to enable it to be used as an earthworks material. However, the material is still much wetter than its optimum moisture content. By co-operative value engineering, the team on the Nouvelle Autoroute 30 project in Montréal, Quebec, investigated and achieved moisture content and degree of compaction derogations to the Ministry of Transport, Quebec specification. This allowed the successful construction of many low and high road embankments using an unprecedented 2.3 × 106 m3 of this weathered Champlain clay crust material. This paper describes how the design and construction issues associated with using this material for earthworks were evaluated and addressed.

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