Project Summary
Loss of the fine soil fraction not only creates a public health and safety issue as clouds of dust develop near the gravel road or runway, the loss of the fines also results in degradation of the gravel surface. Maintaining these surfaces has associated environmental impacts as additional resources are required to maintain the gravel surface such as aggregate, which needs to be mined, transported to the site and applied. Proper application of synthetic fluids to control dust will result in a reduction of the loss of fines over time resulting in a reduction in environmental impact. However, without understanding the relationship between the properties of the aggregate and the performance of the palliative the true effectiveness of these palliatives will not be realized. The specific objectives of this proposal are as follows: (1) Develop a correlation between the physical properties of aggregate and synthetic fluid dust control palliative performance, (2) Develop a correlation between a laboratory based palliative performance testing method (PM10 Drop Test) and a field based palliative based testing method (UAF-DUSTM), and (3) use the results from objectives 1 and 2 to develop engineering guidelines for the application of synthetic fluid palliatives on gravel roads and runways.
