Engineering approaches for road construction projects and determination of geotechnical design parameters: Road network improvement of northern Iraq

Abstract

Transport in Northern Iraq become an important issue in terms of trading due to its geographical situation. A road construction between Darbandikhan and Kalar villages in the northern part of Iraq is crucial for the connection of Erbil and Suleymaniye to northeast. On the other hand, road construction need a detailed environmental and geotechnical study in order to determine geo-engineering parameters of ground conditions. For this purpose this study is carried out to highlight the engineering geological and geotechnical features considering the groundwater conditions of the Darbandikhan - Kalar Road route section. In this context, field and laboratory works were performed along the projected route. Within the scope of field studies, engineering geology map was generated, a suitable routing was specified and drilling and in-situ testing was realized. 7 boreholes and total 196,5 m geotechnical purposed drilling works performed along the planned route section. The core samples handled from drilling works are utilized for laboratory testing. As a result of this study information about the bearing capacity, slope stability and basic soil parameters were determined and no problematic item was encountered.