posted 05-22-2023 09:37 AM               

According to this person, the crawlerway was dredged and in one piece as if a canal was dug and then filled with good material after removing the clay and silt. Here is a drawing:

Here are his words:

This hole gets dredged, not excavated. In wetlands, they just run a big dredge with cutterhead and it chews up everything as it moves. They cut down below the water table, and the water fills the hole down at the bott, which floats the dredge and allows it move.

The only photo that comes close is this one and it is there, or I have a doubt because on the photograph one sees two kind of channels corresponding to the ways of circulation or maybe this picture was taken after the beginning of the filling operations with CBR 15 sand which will be used as foundation and that the earth in the middle is the first to emerge from the water?

posted 05-22-2023 07:47 PM               

...the Crawlerway is 40m (130ft) wide, about the width of the New Jersey Turnpike. Each lane is 12m (40ft) wide and laid out on 27 m (90 ft) center lines. To prepare the base, more than 6,000,000 cu m (8,000,000 cu yds) of fill were dredged from the adjacent Barge Channel and allowed to compact the subsoil to 95 percent density, almost the hardness of rock.

This project began in November 1963 when softer and unsuitable material was replaced with the sand fill. Vibratory rollers levelled the fill which was proof rolled with 90-metric-ton (100 ton) machine. Two meters (seven ft) of graded, crushed aggregate provided the base course, above which a layer of 30 cm (12 in) of selected hydraulic fill was added.

The bed was topped and sealed against moisture with an asphaltic prime coat, then covered by loose Alabama river stone 20cm (8 in) deep on curves and 150cm ( 6 in) deep on the straightway. The loose rock relieves friction on the crawler treads and is occasionally racked over with a spring harrow. The roadway was completed in August 1965.

posted 05-23-2023 12:08 AM               

But I had already done my "homework" and the information you gave me I already knew (actually what I really miss is a "visual proof" of the dredging as described by my "informant").

Even on the video entitled "The Big Challenge" (of 1967) there are very few passages concerning the construction of the crawlerway.

Regarding the choice of river gravel from the Alabama River and not another one, it was chosen for its many properties: its hardness (8 on the Mohs mineral hardness scale), its roundness, its sphericity and its resistance to the LA abrasion test (Los Angeles abrasion test).

posted 05-23-2023 10:31 AM               

I am depressed just for the lack of interest on the subject, ah yes of course when we ask for the VAB and the LC-39A there are answers but only a few words about the crawlerway drowned in the whole... it's a shame.

I even have sources but I don't know how to reach them. Examples from the Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) for the crawlerway:

• "LC-39 VAB Crawlerway Surfacing." Architectural drawings, NASA KSC, May 1968. On file, Kennedy Space Center Engineering Documentation Center.

• U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Merritt Island. "LC-39 Pad “B,” Crawlerway Surfacing; Audio/Video Cables and Miscellaneous Work, Volume 1." Architectural drawings, NASA KSC, December 1966. On file, Kennedy Space Center Engineering Documentation Center.

posted 05-23-2023 02:47 PM               

The fact there is water visible in the excavation is what prompts the name change to "dredging." The cranes in the photo showing the turn towards the pads do look like they may have drag buckets on them.

The two channels make sense when you look at the scale of the project (see the cars), why dig out the centre only to refill it when it does not bear any load?

posted 05-24-2023 07:12 AM               

And here is the drawing that I deduced before my "informant" corrected it (very first post of the discussion).

posted 05-25-2023 07:03 AM               

They had to excavate down, get rid of all the Florida muck, and then backfill it with good material.

About a mile or a mile and a half out there along the crawlerway, there was a spot with underground water flow. In order to protect the sub-base and keep us from having a dip in the crawlerway, we had to put in sheet piles to stop the water flow across the material.

posted 05-25-2023 01:47 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Blackarrow:
Anything about how Apollo got to the Moon is interesting...

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posted 05-27-2023 03:51 PM               

...road to pad isn't a divided highway but two road bed filled with loose rock to help cushion the weight."

I found an old photo that represents the idea I had at the beginning of my research on the subject. Here you can see the separate dredging between the pile drivers, top left.

posted 06-01-2023 04:52 AM               

Here's a photo montage based on images of old topographical maps (1940 to 1970) found on this site:

What you can see on the "central" map (from the 60s) is that the engineers totally plugged up an arm of the Banana River with hydraulic fill to create the support for the roadway. Even the MSS parking area didn't exist originally, as well as a good part (if not all) of the launch pad.

posted 06-07-2023 11:37 AM               

About a mile or a mile and a half out there along the crawlerway, there was a spot with underground water flow. In order to protect the sub-base and keep us from having a dip in the crawlerway, we had to put in sheet piles to stop the water flow across the material.

posted 06-17-2023 03:50 AM               

Personally, I think it's the beginning (compared to the color photo of the same type posted above), as you can see the sand pyramid on pad A in the distance and a single channel on both. (source: 1964 Spaceport News Summary Final)

posted 09-07-2024 10:37 AM               

Verified that except for the first 30 to 40 feet extending to Pad A, that section of crawlerway is not maintained. In fact pretty much all of the upper layer of river rock is gone.