End Area Volume

Can anyone explain the following items and how they affect end area volumes?

  1. When you perform an "element information" on a feature definition there is a section named "Surface Defaults" and there are the following options.  I cannot find anything that explains what exactly these options do:
    1. None
    2. Existing
    3. Design
    4. Substrata
    5. Subgrade
  2. When in the End-Area Volumes dialog there is a tab named Classifications.  Once again I cannot find any information on the 6 different classifications that you can select.  What do these do?:
    1. Ignore
    2. Unclassified
    3. Unsuitable
    4. Rock
    5. Designed
    6. MDC

I have modeled existing pavement on my current job and have brought that surface into my cross sections.  In my state this existing pavement needs to be totally removed whether it is in cut or fill.  I would think that if I classified this as an "unsuitable" that the end-area volume tool would quantify this area and if it is below my proposed surface, it would fill the area that once was occupied by the existing pavement.  I simply cannot get the software to do this.

The unsuitable Materials by Station would be a useful tool if I were building a new road were there was not a road before.  However, just like the other 95% of our jobs, we are building a new road were an existing road is now.  I cannot keep a single width unsuitable from tie-down to tie-down because I need to remove topsoil and existing pavement which are at dissimilar depths (topsoil is 6 inches and pavement is 15 inches).

Parents Reply
  • Hi Kaitlyn,

    Sorry I was on vacation last week and yesterday.  I came to the realization that the Open Roads End Area volume tool is weak and cannot do what the legacy tools of SS2 and SS3 could do.  So we need to do more work on our end to get what we need.  What I ended up doing is creating a new existing terrain model that did not include the existing pavement or the existing topsoil.  My new surface model actually steps down in elevation (from the actual existing surface) when you get in areas of existing pavement and topsoil.  Doing this will make it easier for the software and it can just give true cut/fill areas.

    To make this new terrain model I simply modeled the existing topsoil (out to the limits of construction) and the existing pavement using corridor modelling and using those models to merge their bottom of surfaces into my existing terrain model.  I doubt this was Bentley's intent, but this is how I got it done.

    On top of that, I also attempted to use the Legacy earthwork tool in SS4 and it doesn't work right.  It would not understand what an unsuitable was.  I could run the same cross section file with SS2 and SS4 and SS4 would get it wrong every time.  I think Bentley is focused on Open Roads Designer right now and not looking to fix these issues.  Hopefully ORD works better than what we are using now.

    I hope this helps!  Write back if you have questions.

    Dennis

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