DEVELOPMENT OF AN EARTHWORK PLANNNING AND COST ESTIMATION SYSTEM USING BLOCK MODEL

Abstract

  In the design and construction planning of earthworks for land development or road construction, itera-tive investigation is usually executed to balance the cut-and-fill volumes and to minimize the conveying distance of soils. The conventional 2D drawing based method relies on the capability and experience of engineers in judging whether the design fits in with the circumstances and whether or not concrete retain-ing walls should be installed. Furthermore, it takes a great deal of effort and long time to calculate cut-and-fill volumes for a number of comparative cases iteratively. Thus, in this research, an earthwork plan-ning and cost estimation system was developed, based on the “block model,” as a low cost and general tool, using free 3D CAD and general-purpose spreadsheet software packages. Then, an actual earthwork project was applied as a sample, and the test showed the feasibility and practicality of the system.