Volume Equalization Method For Land Grading Design: Uniform Sloped Grading In Two Directions At Rectangular Fields

This paper presents a new method (Volume Equalization Method-VEM) which has been developed to perform land grading design at designing the uniform sloped grading in two directions. The method is a second design alternative of the method developed by Ayranci and Temizel (2011) which about uniform sloped grading in one direction at rectangular fields. The main goal of this method is to minimize the volumes of earth work required for acceptable smooth surface. The method based on the assumption that before and after grading the soil volumes measured from a reference elevation are equal. The method eliminates the need for trial and error procedures. According to the results of the application for a known slope values in X and Y directions for a hypothetical area about 2.21 ha, the cut volumes per hectare for Least Square Method and Volume Equalization Method are 419.5 m3 and 403.2 m3 respectively. According to the results, it can be expressed that Volume Equalization Method has a significantly smaller cut volume than conventional least-squares method in rectangular fields.