Merit Engineering Inc. conducted an extensive geotechnical engineering investigation for this road rehabilitation project. The objective of this study was to verify the existing road and subsurface soil conditions at the project area, derive conclusions, and provide recommendations for structural design of the pavement sections. The project area included 3,000 feet of Columbia Avenue and 4,000 feet of Simcoe Street in Goldendale, WA.

In order to evaluate the existing road conditions, we conducted Benkelman Beam (BB) tests and Falling Weight Deflection (FWD) tests. The roads were then divided into sections according to their mean rebound deflections responding to the BB and FWD test. Subsurface conditions were evaluated by conducting fifty-eight test borings along the road sections and Dynamic Cone Penetration tests. Merit Engineering also collected soil samples in order to provide significant engineering properties of the site¡¯s soils. In Merit¡¯s in-house laboratory, soils were analyzed for Atterburg Limits, grain size distribution, moisture content and California bearing Ratio.