Two-Phase Earthwork Optimization Model for Highway Construction

Abstract

One of the main activities in highway construction is earthwork, that is a complex process involving excavation, transportation, and filling of large quantities of different earth material types.\ud Earthwork operations are costly, and undergo several constraints due to the fact that they have large environmental and social impacts on the areas surrounding the construction site. Using mathematical models to produce a minimum-cost earthwork plan that satisfies all constraints is thus of great significance for enhancing the productivity of the overall construction project.\ud This paper presents an earthwork optimization system based on the use of linear programming that operates in a novel two-phase approach. In the first phase an aggregate model determines the feasibility of the overall project, whereas in the second phase disaggregate models determine the actual flows of each material.\ud The two-phase quantitative method for earthwork optimization developed in this paper includes all features derived from the everyday activity of one of the major European companies in construction. It involves classical decisions such as excavations, fillings, use of quarries and dump sites, and the temporary rent of depots, but it also accounts for several novelties, including the use of recycling facilities and the explicit integration with the existing public road network. Extensive computational results are obtained by running the models on a set of realistic instances, and show the efficiency of the proposed approach in solving complex earthwork problems

A Comparative Life Cycle Assessment and Costing of Lighting Systems for Environmental Design and Construction of Sustainable Roads

“…These aspects have a significant environmental impact related to the consumption of virgin materials, petroleum-derived products, and the modification of the ecosystem. For impact mitigation in "earthworks", it would be interesting to optimize the compensatory movement of the soil [67,68], which could reduce the cost and time of these works while minimizing waste and emissions. Environmental performance could also be improved by replacing virgin raw materials with byproducts from industry and other sectors, e.g., asphalt pavement recycling techniques with reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) aggregates [69], municipal incinerated bottom ash [3,11], plastic waste [12], agricultural waste products such as sugarcane ash [70], or blast-furnace slag [71] on road pavements, or low-temperature materials instead of hot-mix asphalts embedded in the road to reduce energy consumption [72].…”

A Model to Reduce Earthmoving Impacts

“…Moreover, LP-based optimization techniques have been incorporated in commercial planning software for the transport infrastructure construction industry (Shah & Dawood, 2011). Bogenberger et al (2015) developed a method for optimizing earthmoving activities by taking into consideration different material types, material recycling, and the impact of using external transportation networks for disposal and borrow pits. Li and Lu (2016) developed a method for both optimizing the cut-and-fill matchings and assigning the work with a work-breakdown structure (WBS).…”

Decision making in highway construction: a systematic review and future directions

“…Monghasemi et al (2015) developed a decision-making framework to optimise the discrete-time–cost–quality trade-off problems. Bogenberger et al (2015) presented a decision support system for scheduling earthworks activities. Highway work zones often increase fuel consumption, traffic delays and other unwanted impacts on road users.…”