| Pavement edge drop off and washout of granular shoulders are serious and often dangerous problems. While work has been done to improve the quality, load bearing capacity, and safety for paved shoulders along highways, little has been done to improve the performance of granular shoulders along rural roads. A literature review of shoulder stabilization best management practices for West Virginia and the neighboring states identified stabilization techniques mostly limited to introducing additional granular material into the shoulder. Innovative stabilization treatments identified in the literature were selected for experimental treatment based on a weighted system that ranked anticipated service life, availability, ease of application, demonstrated successful applications, and unit cost. The treatments tested in this experiment include Geoweb, Mechanical Concrete, RS-2 asphalt emulsion, and type III cement. Treatments were installed along Route 279 in Bridgeport, WV. Visual inspection forms were used to document performance at days 1, 3, 7, 14, 30, 60, 90, 120 and 180 following installation. Performance criteria including aggregate buildup, areas of depression, firmness, loose aggregate, and rutting were evaluated as a function of length. The shoulder treated with type III cement performed better than other treatments with respect to aggregate buildup, drop off, loose aggregate, and rutting. There are performance issues with all the other methods. |
