The Job
This sloped pit lightweight backfill project is located in Western Virginia, at James Madison University. This work is part of the conversion the basketball arena at JMU in Harrisonburg, Virginia into a practice and competition facility for other sports.
The Challenge
An area of sloped stadium seating needed to be removed, and the mezzanine level floor extended over the sloped soil, which stayed in place, and onto a new wall at the toe of the slope. To reduce the likelihood of inducing settlement by adding up to 10 feet of backfill over the existing soils, the architect originally designed the backfill material as Expanded Polystyrene (EPS blocks). However, given the uneven soil slope, this would have been very challenging to install.
The general contractor reached out to CJGeo to see if there was a more practical load reducing fill.
The Solution
Working with the general contractor, architect and geotechnical EOR, CJGeo designed a backfill system that could be installed in fewer than six hours onsite, still provided a significant reduction in load, and cost significantly less than the foam blocks. The optimal product to meet the project criteria was 25lb/cuft CJFill-Ultra Lightweight low density flowable fill. CJFill-Ultra Lightweight has all the constructibility advantages of flowable fill, along with the following additional benefits:
- is made at up to 200CY/hour onsite
- provides up to 150CY of final material per load of raw material to the site
- applies minimal lateral pressure on adjacent walls during installation
- significantly reduces dead loads to underlying soils & structures
CJGeo generated the material onsite using dry batch generation, and placed the material in two lifts in order the limit the lateral loads on the new CMU wall during placement to 0.9psi.
Speak With An Expert
Facing a similar challenge to this sloped pit lightweight backfill project? Give us a shout or shoot us a text. Click the state marker for the location of your project for contact info for the appropriate rep.
