News

A New Forest Road has been Put into Operation in Balvi Forest District

On 2 August this year, JSC “Latvia's State Forests” (LVM) put into operation a new forest road – “Muižnieku ceļš” with a total length of 0.94 km in the Balvi Forest District of the North Latgale region. A third of the road is built on a section of peat soil; therefore, a wooden deck construction was used to ensure the load-bearing capacity of the surface. The width of the log deck used is 7.20 metres and 317 cubic metres of timber were used for the construction of the road.

The high quality of the road is confirmed by carrying capacity measurements at the time of accepting the road into operation. The bearing capacity measurement on the specific road section, performed with the Zorn ZFG-03 dynamic bearing capacity measuring device, reaches 79.23 MN/m2, which is greater than the minimum value of 55 MN/m2 set by LVM.

Forest roads are mainly used for the removal of wood from forest massifs. To do this, the road must ensure a sufficiently high load-bearing capacity of the structure during timber transportation. Forest roads are mostly built from mineral materials, such as soil, sand, gravel, crushed stone, the bearing capacity as well as the resistance to loads of which depend on the degree of humidity of the material. As the degree of humidity increases, the load-bearing capacity of the structure decreases, while as the structure dries, the load-bearing capacity is restored.