GEOCORD: Extending the service life of roads

GEOCORD | Roads are a critical infrastructure component for the mining industry. Their characteristics directly affect the mine’s efficiency, operating costs, and safety.

The poor condition of roads dramatically slows down the speed of the equipment and leads to the rapid wear of tyres, breakdowns, and expensive repairs. Therefore, mining companies will have to bear the constant costs of road restoration, and this will lead to forced downtime of the transport.

Since concrete roads are very time-consuming, labour-intensive, and expensive to build, the most widespread solution is roads with crushed stone.

However, due to cyclic loads, the crushed stone crumbles over time, pits and rutting are formed, the roads require maintenance and the mine’s output decreases.

Engineer and inventor Mikhail Azarkh, CEO of the geosynthetics manufacturer PRESTORUS LLC, found a solution to this problem and developed a new generation of geosynthetics, 3D reinforced geocell GEOCORD.

The patented production technology includes the use of ultra-strong reinforcing threads in the polyethylene tape, which prevents plastic deformation of the cells. The reinforced geocell does

not stretch under constant loads and elevated temperatures and maintains its geometric dimensions and shape that is particularly useful in mining roads, which are often subject to a rapid destruction due to mechanical loads of heavy equipment. GEOCORD is stronger and more reliable than standard 3D geocells and has an extended service life of up to 100 years.

The basic principle of the reinforced geocell is to redistribute the vertical load onto adjacent cells, which can significantly reduce the load on the underlying foundation. To put it simply, reinforced geocells do not allow the crushed stone to creep, since the aggregate material is placed in separate cells and each cell individually takes on the load. As a result, the road does not deform or loosen up, on the contrary, it becomes more solid and even.

Structures with the reinforced 3D geocell GEOCORD can maintain a given bearing capacity for many years, increasing the service life of the mining road. The wide range of GEOCORD® cell heights, sizes and thickness allow you to choose the most optimal solution for construction under different axial loads.

The construction of a road with 3D geocells takes place in several stages. First, GEOCORD is installed on the prepared base and the cells are backfilled with crushed stone. Then the surface is levelled with a motor grader and compacted with a vibratory roller.

Simplicity and accessibility are the main advantages of 3D geocells. Since the installation does not require any additional equipment or tools, the labour intensity of the road construction is significantly reduced by 63.5%.

The road design with 3D geocell GEOCORD improves the operational qualities of open-pit roads, reducing the cost of their maintenance and repairs by up to 25% as it contributes to increased strength and flatness of road pavement, improved adhesion, and no spillage of the aggregate material.

Moreover, vehicle maintenance costs are reduced by up to 15% and fuel consumption is up to 7% lower, while the speed and productivity of the dump trucks increase by up to 3% and large-sized tyre mileage is up to 18% higher.