In an effort to reconstruct and expand 7.64 miles of roadway along the IH-10 corridor in Austin County, crews expanded the existing two main lane and two-way frontage roads into six main lanes with three in each direction along with one-way frontage roads on opposing sides. Scope on this $156.4-million project also included demolition and reconstruction of 11 multispan bridges and continuation of intelligent transportation systems throughout the length of the project.

Just ahead of ramp-up in spring and summer 2022, the project faced an extreme material shortage at all major cement suppliers. Resulting material rationing meant the project could only receive 20 loads of cement per week, when at peak it would need 80 loads per week. Resequencing paving to smaller more intricate placements to make the best use of the material received helped ensure that the schedule kept moving. The cement shortage and rationing lasted approximately four months, but the project was able to finish all major paving operations in January 2023 and complete work ahead of schedule and under budget in February.

Photo courtesy Webber LLC

To further reduce the impact of concrete shortages, crews made slight modifications to one of the concrete belt placers to receive concrete from a Webber-owned concrete plant and feed it directly to the slipform paver. This allowed the project team to be in full control of the entire operation from start to finish and dramatically improved daily production.

Webber’s team also partnered with the University of Texas at Austin’s Center for Transportation Research to perform a trial on this project that tested various concrete mix designs that use recycled fine aggregates from an old concrete roadway that was removed, crushed and processed specifically for this test. The four trial mix designs and one control mix were then loaded into the project’s central mix concrete plant and batched per standard operation to be placed along a 2,500-ft stretch of the eastbound frontage road. Sensors installed within the pavement fed data to acquisition stations that were set up to take readings for several months after placement. Results from this trial could impact the community and industry by identifying the viable use of recycled aggregates for new concrete placement, reducing the amount of mining for aggregate material and the potential waste created by concrete removal.

Photo courtesy Webber LLC

The I-10 project served as a test pilot for the GKD Proximity Sensor program as well. Crews installed proximity sensor systems on 10 pieces of heavy equipment, while project personnel each received one of 70 unique RFID tags. The system works by triggering an alarm inside the equipment cab, alerting the operator that there is an employee within close proximity of that piece of equipment. Sensors also vibrated to alert personnel that they were getting too close to the active machines. The proximity sensor program provides a dashboard of data that is used to identify all incursions, operator acknowledgements, frequency of incursions and historical comparisons. Combined, the program resulted in greater visibility to heavy equipment traffic, making operations safer for all involved. This program proved to be a major success and has since been implemented on all projects companywide.