CCX-M® Cattle Loading Pad

Location:  Abergavenny, Wales

Project Type:  Product Supply

Product Used: Concrete Canvas® CCX-M®

 

Project 

In many canal lining applications, clients often ask us how our material performs under cattle loading conditions, specifically puncture performance, when cows or other heavy animals make their way to the edge to drink or wallow in the canal. In order to simulate this application, CCX-M® was selected for creation of a pad over which approximately
400 dairy cattle pass in the morning and evening, going to and from milking.

The installed CCX-M® could thereafter be monitored for puncture resistance 24 hours after installation as well as over the medium and long term. The overall purpose of the project was to establish whether CCX-M® can withstand the puncture loading associated with cattle hooves.

In September 2020, Concrete Canvas CCX-M® was installed on a trial basis for this application at a dairy farm in Abergavenny, Wales.

The pre-existing access to the dairy is covered with precast concrete railway sleepers approximately 2m long by 0.2m wide and 0.2m thick. These sleepers are laid side by side to effectively create a hard-wearing surface. The benefit of these sleepers is that they are easy to install but are very costly.

 Concrete Canvas® (CC) is a Geosynthetic Cementitious Composite Mat (GCCM), a factory-produced material combining cement within geosynthetic layers that hardens when hydrated for erosion control and weed suppression.

Installation of CCX-M®

Dairy farms are typically quite messy with waste and slurry generated by cattle. On the day of the installation, all waste material had to be cleared, the sleepers removed and the void left by the sleepers backfilled to create a well compacted pad.

In order to improve the stability of the substrate, it was first hand compacted at the level of the pad base. The void was then backfilled with a well-graded gravel which was then also hand compacted and covered with a low-grade geotextile layer. Finally, a layer of sand screed was installed and covered with a second layer of geotextile.

Once the ground preparation was completed, the CCX-M® was laid by hand to form a transverse joint mid-way across the pad, perpendicular to the direction of cattle traffic. The outer edges of the CCX-M® were then tucked over the sides and fixed with countersunk wedge anchors to the top of the sleepers. An overlap of approximately 250mm was created to determine how the exposed overlap edge performs under hoof. Adhesive sealant was applied to this overlap before it was mechanically fixed with a double row of screws at 100mm spacing in a staggered configuration.

CCX-M® was hydrated by hand using a watering can. The surface was hydrated 3 times at approximately 15-minute intervals to ensure sufficient saturation.

Project Outcome

A total of 6m² of CCX-M® were installed in around three hours by a team of four in 20°C. Despite dry conditions on the day of the installation, rain was anticipated that night.
The pad was left to cure for 24 hours prior to opening it to cattle traffic. Monitoring of the pad under loading began immediately, with no evidence of any puncturing, cracking or other forms of degradation observed.

The project was deemed successful with puncture load resistance very much evident. There was also extremely little impact on the operating capacity of the dairy with cattle simply diverted around the installation site during the 24-hour curing period.

Assuming that the average dairy cow weighs 600kg and that the full weight of the cow is transferred to 2 hooves whilst walking, it can be deduced that each hoof applies a force of approximately 3kN over an area roughly 100mm in diameter.

Considering that there are 1600 individual cattle trips per day to and from the dairy and half of those cattle traverse the pad then a total of 1600 hoof loads are applied to the pad daily.

In the 4.5 months from installation to writing of this report, there was no damage caused to the CCX-M® under an extrapolated load of 216,000 hooves. This is a considerable achievement and significantly demonstrates the strength and durability of CCX-M®.