<< Click to Display Table of Contents >> Navigation:  User Manual > Truck & Shovel Simulation > Setting up Haul Roads and Accesses > Geometric Design of Haul Roads and Accesses > Creating a Road on Terrain

Creating a Road on Terrain involves creating a horizontal alignment followed by creating a vertical alignment. In addition friction factors and speed limits are applied to the Horizontal alignment.

The Horizontal alignment can optionally include the specification of the typical road cross section. Roads on terrain are typically set up on surveyed topography on which the road exists. If a new road is designed which is does exist in the survey topography, 3d-DigPlus can impose this road design using the horizontal and vertical alignments along with the typical cross section. This involves excavation and filling as required.

Main Haul Roads, Excavation Access Roads and Dump Access Roads can all be created as Roads on Terrain.  3d-DigPlus does not distinguish between these types of Roads (ie there is only one type of Road on Terrain and all roads are of this type). Main Haul Roads, Excavation Access Roads and Dump Access Roads are distinguished by mode of operation and this distinction is made at the time Roads are assigned to Subsequences. However the intended mode of operation will affect the design of the road.

 

Key Information - Road Design and Mode of Operation

3d-DigPlus Roads have three modes of operation:Main Haul Road, Excavation Access Road and Dump Access Road. When creating a Road on Terrain there is only one type of Road, and this type can be assigned any of the modes of operation. However Roads rarely have more than one mode of operation (ie a road set up as an Excavation Access Road will almost never function as a Main Haul or a Dump Access).

When Creating a new Road it is important to consider its mode of operation and design it accordingly. It is strongly recommended that a road naming convention be used which distinguishes between the three modes of operation so it is immediately clear which is the intended mode of operation for any given Road.

 

 

The 3d-DigPlus Road functionality is designed to allow the user to rapidly set up Roads for the purposes of simulation, is not intended to function as a civil engineering tool.

 

Roads terminology

The following terminology is used for 3d-DigPlus Roads:

 

Horizontal Alignment. This is the alignment (shape and location) of the road in the XY plane. Horizontal Alignments are drawn via an interactive process in a terrain window. As they are drawn they appear draped on the topography in 3d. However internally the horizontal alignment is only two-dimensional.

Straight. A Straight is an unbroken straight  line section of the Horizontal Alignment.

Point of Intersection (PI). A Point of Intersection is the point where two Straights meet.

End Junction. An End Junction refers to the transition section between two Straights.

Segment. A Segment of a Road is a contiguous group of Straights with common geometric parameters.

Vertical Alignment. This is the alignment (shape) of the road in the vertical plane. It is important to note that although the Horizontal Alignment appears draped on the topography it is strictly two-dimensional, it is the Vertical Alignment that controls the gradients of various parts of the road.

Vertical Point of Intersection (VPI). This is the point of intersection between two straight-line segments in the Vertical Alignment.

Formation. The Road Formation refers to the shape and dimensions of the road pavement in cross-section.

Haul up

Haul down

 

Creating a new  Road with horizontal and vertical alignment

 

The steps involved in creating a road are:

1.Using the Create Roads function create a new Road and give it a suitable name.

2.Input all required basic parameters.

3.Create the road horizontal alignment. This is an interactive process where the alignment is drawn as a series of Straights in a Terrain Window.

4.Create the vertical alignment. This is an interactive process where the alignment is drawn in a Cross Section Window.

5.Input the parameters required for truck dynamics.

 

The topics immediately following cover steps 1 to 4 which involve to set up of the road alignments. The final topic in this section covers step 5 involving truck dynamics parameters.