A cut, in the context of earthmoving, generally means the removal of soil or rock material. When used in reference to transportation routes, it has the more particular meaning of removal directed along the line of a canal, railway, or roadway, in order to reduce the grade of the route. For example, Railway Age's Comprehensive Railroad Dictionary defines a cut as "a passage cut for the roadway through an obstacle of rock or dirt."[1]
Cuts can be created by multiple passes of a grader, scraper or excavator, or by blasting.[2] One unusual means of creating a cut is to remove the roof of a tunnel through daylighting. Material removed from cuts is ideally balanced by material needed for fills along the same route, but this is not always the case when cut material is unsuitable for use as fill.
Contents |
Types of cut
There are at least two types of cut, sidehill cut and through cut. The former permits passage of a transportation route alongside of or around a hill, where the slope is transverse to the roadway. A sidehill cut can be formed through removal only, cutting on the high side balanced by filling on the low side, or less commonly, by building up fill to achieve a flat surface for the route. In contrast, through cuts require removal of material where the adjacent grade is higher on both sides of the route. In this case, "little or no material can be excavated by sidecasting", i.e., removed material cannot be dumped alongside the route.[3]
Notable cuts
Notable canal cuts
- Gaillard Cut on the Panama Canal
Notable railway cuts
Notable roadway cuts
- Sideling Hill cut on I-68
See also
References
- ^ Robert G. Lewis et al., eds., Railway Age's Comprehensive Railroad Dictionary (Omaha, Neb.: Simmons-Boardman Books, 1984), p. 48. This reference does not include a definition for the corresponding term fill.
- ^ Herbert L. Nichols, Jr., and David A. Day, P.E., Moving the Earth: The Workbook of Excavation, 5th ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2005), pp. 8.16 et seq.
- ^ Nichols and Day, Moving the Earth, p. 8.16.
 |
This article about a civil engineering topic is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
