JG Afrika was appointed by Exxaro Resources to provide engineering design and construction supervision services for the redirection of two roads to urgently access new coal reserves at Leeuwpan mine in Mpumalanga.
The 6 km section of the provincial road R50 and 6 km private road that services the nearby Thaba Chueu Mine were redirected in only eight-and-a-half months.
Precast-concrete base slabs were incorporated for the 11 000 m of prefabricated culverts that were installed along the routes. This saved significant time in steel fixing and shuttering works.
Quality crushed aggregate and rock-fill were sourced from Thaba Chueu Mine. This saved significant time in locating suitable material and the need to open borrow pits.
A novel solution comprising rock grid, bidim, rock fill, 19mm and 6.4mm aggregate was used to stabilise the bases for the storm water structures that were installed in the marshy terrain with.
Impact compaction rollers were deployed on about 80% of the road distances to accelerate the treatment of large areas located in commercial maize farmlands.
Notably, the private road features a 16 mm micro-surfacing, Ralumac This rapid-setting cationic modified rubber bitumen slurry AC-E1 facilitates fast construction.
A semi-automated traffic and access control boomgate system was implemented for the level crossing with the public road.
The road comprises a 150 mm thick base course, 200 mm sub-base layer and two selected layers.
A state-of-the-art road recycler was deployed for stabilisation to provide a consistently homogenous mix. Cement bags were unpacked and squeegeed by hand to create jobs.