Surveying Laboratory Manual

MASS DIAGRAMS
CIVIL AND CONSTRUCTION ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT
Iowa State University

MASS DIAGRAMS
Revised 7/98

Background

The discussion within focuses on the English measurements of stations

(100 foot distance) and cubic yards. Although metric units are also
possible, most road agencies and contractors and all railroad projects
continue to use volume measured in cubic yards. The concepts are
identical for metric measurements.

A mass diagram is an analysis tool to evaluate earthwork needs

along a route project. During excavation, the amount of cut and fill
between adjacent stations are seldom equal. In these cases we either
have excess soil (cut) that must be carried to another station, or a
lack of material (fill) which must be acquired from other points to
fill an embankment. The mass diagram is a plot of horizontal distance
along a project against the algebraic sum of the accumulated earthwork
along the project. Excess cut or excavation is assigned a positive
sign; excess fill or embankment is assigned a negative sign. Points on
the plot are connected with straight lines to form an XY plot or graph.
Ascending or positive mass diagram slopes indicate the excess cut is
increasing. Negative or descending mass diagram slopes indicate the
excess fill is increasing. Mass diagrams indicate the spatial
relationship between excavation (cut) and embankment (fill) on a
project and are good tools in planning for efficient earthwork
operations. The basic excavation and embankment volumes and locations
must be known before the mass diagram can be constructed.

Mass diagrams are representations of numerical data and may be

analyzed both graphically and analytically. With the scales commonly
used in plotting, an analytical approach is usually necessary to attain
precision expressed to nearest 0.1 station and volumes to the nearest
10 cubic yards. The mass diagram allows the user to plan for
direction of earth movement along a project and evaluates the amount of
excess fill or borrow material needed. Another item, which is
frequently a contract item that can be analyzed is Overhaul

Some unique terminology is associated with mass diagrams.

Horizontal distances are expressed in stations and volumes are
expressed in cubic yards or cubic meters. Freehaul is used as a
contraction of freehaul distance which is the maximum horizontal

54
 Surveying Laboratory Manual
MASS DIAGRAMS
distance a contractor is expected to haul material without receiving
special payment. Typically the freehaul distance is ten stations, but
as equipment becomes more efficient this limit is increasing. Overhaul
is the product of the overhaul distance and the overhaul yardage and
has the dimensions of station-yards or station-meters cubed.(actually
station cubic yards). Overhaul distance is the average distance the
material is hauled minus the freehaul distance. Overhaul computations
may be based on areas under the mass diagram or by moment type centroid
calculations.

Borrow is the term applied to the earth material brought in from

outside the project to make up for a lack of embankment material, and
waste is the term applied to excess excavation material that is not
used in the project construction.

Crosshaul is the volume of material hauled crosswise on a project

rather than longitudinally. For instance, if the excavation available
between two stations was 500 cubic yards and the embankment needed
between the same two stations was 800 cubic yards, the 500 cubic yards
of available excavation would be crosshauled between the two stations
and an additional 300 cubic yards of material would have to come from
somewhere outside the limits of the two stations.

Shrink applies to a percentage adjustment in measured embankment

volumes to account for the fact that the excavated materials usually
decrease in volume when placed in the embankment.

Maximums or minimums on the mass diagram often occur near the

stations where the proposed project grade is near the existing grade
(grade points). The steeply sloping parts of the mass diagram usually
occur near areas of excessive cuts or excessive fills.

Where haul distances would be long, it may be more economical to

waste material in one area and borrow (buy) additional material
elsewhere to provide for shortages. The cost of excavating plus
overhaul may be equated to the cost of excavating plus borrow to come
up with a limit of economical haul as follows:

LEH = Limit of Economical Haul (stations)

FHD = Freehaul Distance (assume ten stations)
c = cost of excavation (includes hauling FHD, per cubic
yard)
b = cost of borrow (includes excavating and hauling, per
cubic yard)
h = cost of overhaul (per station yard)
x = economical overhaul distance (stations)

55
 Surveying Laboratory Manual
MASS DIAGRAMS

For one cubic yard at economical overhaul distance

c + hx = c + b

x = b/h stations

LEH = FHD + x

56