ROAD-MAKING

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18068, 20 April 1933, Page 3

ROAD-MAKING

NOVEL MACHINE TESTED SOILS PROCESSED BY HEAT Interesting experiments are in progress in Queensland in the making of roads with ordinary soils processed by heat. The tests were authorised last year after Mr. L. R. 1L Irvine, an engineer employed toy the Alain Roads Board of Now South Wales, had read a paper to the Sydney branch of the Australian Institution of Kngineers in which he outlined the results ol’ his experiments in converting soil, such as that composing the surface of country roads, into a hard stone-like material. Tho Queensland Commissioner for Main Roads, Mr, J. R. Kemp, asked Air. Irvino to have a machine constructed to treat soils in the manner recommended and promised to have it thoroughly tested. The machine was manufactured and forwarded to Queensland, and early th’ls year approval was granted by Order-ln-Council for the construction of an experimental section of tho Wnlloon-Haigslea road in the Shire of Ro’sowood. Tho work proved a; sufficient success to warrant a more extensive trial on black soil and for this purpose a. section of the Darling Downs-Loekyer State Highway, near Gatton, has been selected.

The basic principles involved in the process are similar to those employed in tho brick-making industry. Under the action of heat, the character of the soil is altered, the baking changing tho sticky clay into a. material resembling partially burnt, brick, and, in some cases, clinker. The resultant product, it is claimed, is a hard-wear-ing road-making material, which is unaffected by moisture, and is produced at a lower cost than that which would be involved in transporting stone over long distances. Such a process, if proved a. complete success, will be of great service, in black soil country where practically no roadmaking material is available but where there is generally plenty of timber for firing the furnace of the machine.