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Fly ash reinforced pads

jaclo

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Joined
Apr 22, 2014
Messages
108
Location
Midwest
We've slowly (see: reluctantly) gotten into reinforcing pads with fly ash for ag producers in our area. It's been a learning process that has some how managed to turn out for us. Basically we get ~25 ton and disk it in to a 3000sqft area and dump a shitload of water in it, disk/blade/disk/water until it slowly hardens. All of our pads (4 so far) have turned out fantastic.

The material is brought in with grain hoppers and I tell ya it's just a fantastic joyful process that leaves everyone in a great mood at the end of the day.

We picked up another couple big ones about a week ago, (300x600) and I'm starting to think it may be worthwhile to improve our process. We aren't going to buy a conventional pulvamixer. That's simply not in the budget. What I would like to do is spend a little bit of nothing and really get a lot for nothing (ha). I started looking at 3point mounted pulvamixers, specifically these shown here

https://www.iowafarmequipment.com/fae-tractor-pto-soil-stabilizers.html

I think the only way making this move improves our process is if we get one that has the capability to inject water as it's mixing, which from my brief conversation with the salesman just isn't in the budget. I'm also afraid the dust from the mixing will be so bad without the water injection that it simply wouldn't be an improvement for us at all.

Just was wondering if any highway guys here familiar with the **** had any feedback on the 3 point mounted machines or if we should just stick with what we're doing.
 

Welder Dave

Senior Member
Joined
Oct 11, 2014
Messages
12,260
Location
Canada
I would bet those 3pt. soil stabilizers are right up there with mulchers and $20K or more and then you need a BIG tractor to run it. Nothing cheap about it.
 

ol'stonebreaker

Senior Member
Joined
Apr 26, 2015
Messages
333
Location
Idaho
Occupation
retired
What would be wrong with using a rotovator with a water manifold attached to it and a water truck running alongside it on the dry side feeding it with a hose hanging off a boom attached to the truck?
Mike
 

hvy 1ton

Senior Member
Joined
Jul 24, 2006
Messages
1,943
Location
Lawrence, KS
I watched a demo of one of the smaller FAE soil stabilizers a few years ago and with cement powder the dust wasn't bad, but the ground was wet when they put the cement down. Another thing to look into is putting the fly ash down as a slurry in front of the stabilizer.
 

Junkyard

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Jun 5, 2016
Messages
3,621
Location
Claremore, OK
Occupation
Field Mechanic
Big AG tractor running the stabilizer, big saddle style sprayer tanks on tractor, hydraulicly driven pump for water and a spray bar of some sort spraying material being mixed..... just a thought
 

mowingman

Senior Member
Joined
Jul 10, 2010
Messages
1,228
Location
SE Ohio
Occupation
Retired
When I worked for a large engineering company back in the 70's, we built some big "flyash test fills" to evaluate the use of flyash in dam building. It was found that "Lots" of water had to be added to the flyash to get proper compaction. We had a water tanker truck onsite for spraying water onto the ash after each lift was spread. We used a dozer pulling a big Rome disk, to mix the ash, dirt, and water. This worked great for lifts up to about 12" thick.
It will take more passes with the disk, than with a stabilizer, but the mixing with the disk provided a very uniform material that compacted well. Something like this might work in your application.
 

old-iron-habit

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Joined
Nov 22, 2012
Messages
4,233
Location
Moose Lake, MN
Occupation
Retired Cons't. Supt./Hospitals
Might want to look for one of these Semen Tillers. They are the original Pulvi-Mixers and will till 18" deep. I still see them for sale in the $2,000.00 range once or twice a year or so. Most of them have a 4-71 Detroit. The one I have came with three sets of new teeth. These were used to chew up asphalt in the old days and to mix asphalt and oil when they mixed the asphalt in place. For general rooting the owners manual says "with up to a three inch tree trunk we recommend you simply drive over them and grind them up. Equipped with two transmissions, one drive, one for the mixer.2017-06-25 12.56.31.jpg 2017-06-25 12.56.58.jpg 2017-06-25 12.57.08.jpg
 

jaclo

Well-Known Member
Joined
Apr 22, 2014
Messages
108
Location
Midwest
I just wanted to thank everyone for the responses.

Nothing cheap about it.

Right? Welcome to the dirt business.

What would be wrong with using a rotovator with a water manifold attached to it and a water truck running alongside it on the dry side feeding it with a hose hanging off a boom attached to the truck?

I like this idea. We have a 631 water wagon that hopefully we could rig up a system of lines to get this to work.

When I worked for a large engineering company back in the 70's, we built some big "flyash test fills" to evaluate the use of flyash in dam building. It was found that "Lots" of water had to be added to the flyash to get proper compaction. We had a water tanker truck onsite for spraying water onto the ash after each lift was spread. We used a dozer pulling a big Rome disk, to mix the ash, dirt, and water. This worked great for lifts up to about 12" thick.
It will take more passes with the disk, than with a stabilizer, but the mixing with the disk provided a very uniform material that compacted well. Something like this might work in your application.

Lots of water is right. Right now as a rule of thumb we have about 8-10k gallons to cover 18,000 sqft or ~150 tons of FA. We have an aggressive disk but nobody wants to put a cat on the front of it and get it covered in FA. We've just been borrowing a big tractor and disk from a client.

Everything we're doing is working ok, I'm just looking for a way to make it better.

Might want to look for one of these Semen Tillers. View attachment 170934 View attachment 170935 View attachment 170936

I've been keeping an eye out for one of those older units. Looks like a good holds its value considering they're 50 years old.
 

Junkyard

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Jun 5, 2016
Messages
3,621
Location
Claremore, OK
Occupation
Field Mechanic
Reminds me of a joke I can't tell here but there's a submarine and a certain "orientation" :p
 

Queenslander

Senior Member
Joined
Apr 5, 2009
Messages
1,228
Location
Australia
What are these pads used for jaclo?
We live in a farming area with a big coal fired power station nearby, but I don't believe I've heard of any locals utilising fly ash for anything like this.
Would be great to see some pics of the end result.
 

Scrub Puller

Senior Member
Joined
Mar 29, 2009
Messages
3,481
Location
Gladstone Queensland Australia
Yair . . .
Crikey old-iron-habit pictures of that tiller bought back memories.

I did a few shifts on a similar machine (I thought it had a 6-71 though).

Very effective I thought. We were relaying an old bitumen road and they lay bags of cement out on the surface, the machine tilled them in and then the pass was watered and rilled up with the grader watered again I did a second pass and it was graded and compacted.

Looking back it seems pretty simple compared to the huge "stabalizer" machines they use today
 

Tinkerer

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Joined
May 21, 2009
Messages
9,342
Location
The shore of the illinois river USA
Fly ash is commonly used in the area here where I live. It was used on the NASCAR track in Joliet,Il. After the fly ash was incorporated into the clay subgrade it was compacted and then left to cure for seven days. It got so hard the graders could only shave a little at a time on each pass. It was quite entertaining to watch them grading the turns.
 

jaclo

Well-Known Member
Joined
Apr 22, 2014
Messages
108
Location
Midwest
What are these pads used for jaclo?
We live in a farming area with a big coal fired power station nearby, but I don't believe I've heard of any locals utilising fly ash for anything like this.
Would be great to see some pics of the end result.

It's being used as a cost effective substitute for concrete for big piles of ag commodities. Silage or corn is usually what is intended to be piled.

Threw together some pics for you

http://imgur.com/a/EoNIO
 

still learn'n

Senior Member
Joined
Feb 6, 2012
Messages
455
Location
Kansas
We have done quite a few of what you are talking about jaclo. I don't know all the reasoning behind the products we use as I'm the mechanic and not in the office but we have been using I think cement dust a lot lately on grain bunker pads. We used to have a Cat RM500 and now we have a Wirtgen WR200 and the company that hauls in the dust has spreader bars that spread out the dust and then we till it in and incorporate the water in the drum by pushing water truck and the person unhooking and hooking up the water trucks gets the worst end of the deal. We used to have a Howard Rotovator and pulled it with about a 220 hp tractor I think it was and in first gear on that tractor it was all the engine would do to power it and it was maybe a 7ft machine.
 

old-iron-habit

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Nov 22, 2012
Messages
4,233
Location
Moose Lake, MN
Occupation
Retired Cons't. Supt./Hospitals
Yair . . .
Crikey old-iron-habit pictures of that tiller bought back memories.

I did a few shifts on a similar machine (I thought it had a 6-71 though).

Very effective I thought. We were relaying an old bitumen road and they lay bags of cement out on the surface, the machine tilled them in and then the pass was watered and rilled up with the grader watered again I did a second pass and it was graded and compacted.

Looking back it seems pretty simple compared to the huge "stabalizer" machines they use today

Glad it jogged some old memories Scrub. Pretty much everything in my collection of relics brings "old" memories to someone or another. Them old Tillers did a heap of work in there day.
 

jaclo

Well-Known Member
Joined
Apr 22, 2014
Messages
108
Location
Midwest
We have done quite a few of what you are talking about jaclo. I don't know all the reasoning behind the products we use as I'm the mechanic and not in the office but we have been using I think cement dust a lot lately on grain bunker pads. We used to have a Cat RM500 and now we have a Wirtgen WR200 and the company that hauls in the dust has spreader bars that spread out the dust and then we till it in and incorporate the water in the drum by pushing water truck and the person unhooking and hooking up the water trucks gets the worst end of the deal. We used to have a Howard Rotovator and pulled it with about a 220 hp tractor I think it was and in first gear on that tractor it was all the engine would do to power it and it was maybe a 7ft machine.

You guys must get a few more pads every year than we do ha - I wish we could take a swing at some machinery like that. Commodities are going to have to get their **** together first. I really thought about that rotovator deal but to buy a good one you're looking at 10k which to me just isn't feasible. We're getting a good enough job done with what we're doing and I think we'll just stick with it. If it ain't broke etc..
 
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