I am working on a Design build narrative for some large earthwork roadways at an interchange. In particular, i would like an engineer to understand what I want.
1. I would like to describe a overall naturalistic contouring objective so that the roadway embankments of up to 20 feet high aren’t uniformly 2:1 slopes intersecting abruptly into the flat horizontal layout.
2. How do I describe the grading practice at toe of slope conditions where I want the profile of the slopes to transition smoothly from the vertical plane (up to 2:1 slope) to the horizontal plane rather than changing abruptly. Some call it a “seam”, but I am wondering if there is an engineering term. One thought I had was to try to describe the profile of the slope as similar to the profile of a roadway where you identify algebraic differences and make tangent curves such as ” the algebraic difference of the intersecting curves shall not exceed 33%” but i wasn’t sure if that will get me in a hole. Maybe “toe of slope shall be smoothly graded at 3:1 or less steep to prevent an abrupt visual change of grade?”
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