How-to guide
A road follows its centre line and vertical profile, falls across with its crossfall and is dug to formation under its pavement. The mass haul diagram shows how earth moves along it: where cut is used as fill further on, and how far it travels. This guide widens the Hollins Farm spine road, adds a vertical curve and reads its long section and mass haul in Metre2 Earthworks Pro.
Draw a Road by clicking its centre line (Design tab). Its first profile runs from the ground at one end to the ground at the other; Fit to the ground sets VIPs (vertical intersection points) every 60 m at the averaged ground level.
In Properties: carriageway width (7.3 m here), verge each side, crossfall (2.5%) and camber (crowned or one way), and the pavement build-up to formation.
The profile table lists each VIP's chainage and level with the grade to the next. Give an inner VIP a curve length for a parabolic vertical curve: 80 m here. Add or remove VIPs as you need.
The Long section view draws the ground and the road along the centre line with the VIPs, their levels and the grades, and the cut and fill shaded.
The Mass haul view adds up cut (after shrinkage) less fill along the road: rising where there's cut ahead, falling where there's fill. Where it crosses zero is a balance point; each loop is earth moved along the road, with its average haul distance and the overhaul beyond the free haul.
A graph of the cumulative volume of earth (cut less fill, adjusted for shrinkage) along a road. Rising lines mean cut, falling lines fill; where it crosses a balance line, cut and fill balance, and the area of each loop is the haul in m³ x distance.
Free haul is the distance earth is moved within the excavation rate; beyond it, overhaul is paid by volume x extra distance.
Roads, long sections and mass haul are in Earthworks Pro (£19.99 a month or £179 a year, with a 7-day free trial).
No. Earthworks runs in your browser: survey files, LIDAR tiles and PDF drawings are read on your computer and the project is kept in your browser until you save it as a file.
