Tutorial 15

In this tutorial you will;

¨ Enter the levels of cross sections at the start of construction.

¨ Enter levels taken after construction has been in progress for one month.

¨ Inspect the sections and profiles at the end of the month.

¨ Calculate and produce a table of Volumes of Cut/Fill.

Entering the Data

Click here to see or print the two sheets of levels for this job.

The first one at January 30 are the sections after preliminary stripping, but before construction proper starts.

The second set of levels was taken at the end of February, and the contractor has asked you to calculate the volumes of dirt moved so he can present a claim for progress payment.

Start Ezicad_Premium and use File New to create a new job called Example15.

You should use the techniques that you have already learnt in Tutorial 13 to use Entry of Reduced Levels to enter the January levels as Road 1, and save them as Level Sheet 1.

Next you should again start the entry routines and enter the February levels as Road 2, and save them as Level Sheet 2. Note that you should start point numbering for the February levels from point 100 to ensure unique point numbers for each section.

If you are at all unsure as to how to go about this process please take some time to re-do, or at least re-read Tutorial 13 which will tell you everything you need to know to complete this task.

Once both level sheets have been entered you should store the points into the database.

The screen should appear as seen at right

You will again note that the points have defaulted to be displayed horizontally across the page; as we have no way of knowing their true orientation, and for the purposes of this exercise their correct alignment is largely irrelevant.

Next select the Road option.

We need to form strings representing the two centre-lines of the data as well as Attach the profile and section points to each string.

Looking at the January data first.

From the Road Menu select Utilities and then String by Offset option.

All of the January data is on road 1 so make sure the road number data specifies road 1. Fill in a folder of ‘road’ with an id of January. Run the option.

Run the String by Offset option again; this time selecting road number 2 and filling in a string id of February.

We know have two strings representing the two respective centre-lines. Only one is visible however as they lay on top of each other.

Now use Strings, Select, Select by Range and choose the string January.

Next use Points, Select, Select by Range and ‘un-tick’ Point Numbers and instead ‘tick’ Road Number and enter a road number of 1.

Now use the Road, Utilities, Attach Points to String .

Next press the Escape key to clear the selected points and string, and then repeat the process, selecting the string ‘february’ and slecting all the points on Road number 2.

Define & Display Profiles

Select both January and February strings as we wish to display them simultaneously.

Next you need to define what you wish to view, and this is achieved by using the Reference parameters which may be accessed from the menu by pulling down the Road menu, then selecting Natural Criteria, followed by Profile Parameters.

Alternatively, you may select the icon which contains a large green “R”.

A screen similar to that at right will appear.

Click on the Replace with Selected String button and the January and February strings will be filled in.

Click on the ‘Tab’ titled ‘CS Reference’ and again pick the Replace with Selected String button.

To check if everything is in order, you should now display the profile by pulling down the Road menu, selecting the option Display & Plotting, followed by the Display Profile option, or simply select the Display Profile Icon .

A screen will appear as seen below.

Providing the screen does resemble the one shown you may proceed.

If it does not, you need to retrace your steps and see where you have done something different to what is written in this example, and rectify it.

Define & Display Sections

The next step is to define which cross section we wish to consider, so you can pull down the Road menu, select Natural Criteria, and then select Section Parameters. Alternatively, use the “X” icon to achieve the same result, which is a screen similar to that seen below.

Click on the Replace with Selected String button and the January and February strings will be filled in. Click OK.

Now pull down the Road menu, select Display & Plotting and then Display Section, or choose the Section Display Icon and your screen should appear as seen at left where you can see the sections from the two periods overlaid.

Next pull down the Window menu and select Tile Roadworks.

The screen should now appear as seen on top of the next page, showing you the plan, profiles and the cross sections at chainage zero.

You should use the “Next” button in the cross section window to move sequentially through the sections to ensure that no glaring errors can be seen.

If you see any major irregularities in the sections, it means that your data entry has gone astray, and you should go back to the level sheets and carefully check the values you have entered.

Once the sections look vaguely sensible, it is time to determine the quantity of material that has been moved.

Calculating the Volume

Pull down the Road menu, select Volumes and then select Natural Volume Parameters. (or select the “V” icon)

The screen will appear similar to that shown below.

You may select the “Min” and “Max” boxes to assign the values of 0 and 300 respectively.

Next you will see the Format box, and I suggest that you experiment with the formats offered to see which is closest to what you want.

The next step is to assign the Base and Overlay roads.

Use the respective ‘pull down’ options to set the base road as the January string and the overlaid road as the February string.

Once the screen has been filled in satisfactorily, select the OK button.

You are now ready to calculate the volumes, so pull down the Road menu, select Volumes, and this time select the Natural Volumes option.

The program will now load Word or Wordpad with a RTF (Rich Text Format) file with a temporary name of ‘fred.rtf’.

You may now use the facilities in your Word Processor to add in Project names and any other text that you might consider appropriate.

You can also scroll around, or maximise the window to see the ultimate value of the volume, and when you are ready you can print it out if you wish.

You may then use the File, Save As options in Word or WordPad to save the report with a suitable name, and in another format such as Word if that is appropriate.

Note also that since this report is columnar in nature, you need to use Courier, Courier New, or some other equally spaced font or you will get ‘wavy’ columns.

I have presented the results below, but deliberately reduced the font size of various elements to get it to fit in this space.

You can try using Landscape format, or altering the font size to suit your particular needs.

Road Works Volumes. JOB: tutorial14

Chainage Cut Area Cut Vol Prog. Cut Fill area Fill Vol Prog Fill Prog. Vol

0.000 -73.016 0 0 0.000 0 0 0

50.000 -7.721 -2018 -2018 1.136 28 28 -1990

100.000 -1.472 -230 -2248 80.788 2048 2077 -172

140.000 0.000 -29 -2278 173.751 5091 7167 4890

160.000 0.000 0 -2278 188.773 3625 10793 8515

200.000 0.000 0 -2278 81.988 5415 16208 13930

240.000 0.000 0 -2278 114.398 3928 20135 17858

260.000 -12.943 -129 -2407 0.047 1144 21280 18873

280.000 0.000 -129 -2537 0.000 0 21280 18744

300.000 -72.525 -725 -3262 0.000 0 21280 18019