A recent industrial access road in Brandon Manitoba showed deep frost penetration and weak silty clay at subgrade level. Without proper road geotechnics, that pavement would fail within two winters. We run CBR and Proctor tests on-site to establish design parameters for both flexible and rigid pavements. The local clay till has variable moisture content, so we combine classification from calicatas exploratorias with dynamic cone penetration to map the subgrade profile accurately. That data feeds directly into the structural number calculation for asphalt or concrete thickness.
A 4-day soaked CBR on Brandon clay till can drop from 12 to 4 if the fines content exceeds 35% – that changes pavement thickness by 150 mm.