Dry Lakes Racers Australia

Rob Wilson (#1197) found these,
http://www.diamondgrid.com.au/

Got to be a good thing by the looks , easy to handle and move .

Yep, they are really good, seen them in use at our local Ag show, but they are not an easily transportable item.
They need to be laid and then filled with something, sand, gravel, salt etc.
So will need a loader or bobcat or something.
Not sure how the powers that be would be with that???

Cheers
Ian...

I'm also pretty sure these are to prevent erosion/mud rather than provide support?

I don't think the current mats are rigid enough to provide adequate load distribution across their full area for our situation. I've been looking for a source of Marsden Matting to get some as a trial but so far it's all been in the Phillipines. The down side to the Marsden matting being it's steel and will have a limited life in the salt environment unless it's double dip galvanised and washed each year after use.

Just a thought, I know the traditional owners, parks people, and land owners don't want any permanent noticeable modifications to the ramp, lake edge or access etc, in the form of a causeway etc. But just by people using the lake (not just Speed Week) there is always some short time damage to the lake edge.

I was wondering if we could suggest to them for safety and limit any further damage would it be possible to have a digger remove the salt and the mud below and fill with rocks and other compacted fill and then replace the salt so we have basically an "under salt" causeway from the ramp out to the solid salt?

We would need an engineer to specify the make up of the under salt works, but if that was done we could have the best of both worlds, no visual changes to the lake & solid access to the lake at all times.

I know this may sound a tad strange and a bit left field but would it be worth speaking to our friends at the Army. They must come across this type if thing all the time and it wouldn't have to be permeate a win win for all if possible

That thought has entered my grey matter too Norm,a training exercise maybe ?
The squeaky wheel always gets greased 1st

gidge348 wrote:Yep, they are really good, seen them in use at our local Ag show, but they are not an easily transportable item.
They need to be laid and then filled with something, sand, gravel, salt etc.
So will need a loader or bobcat or something.
Not sure how the powers that be would be with that???

Cheers
Ian...

That sure takes the shine off their suitability Ian

Hey guys, I work for a salt company and we use mats on occasion, found 2 conveyor belt lengths of 9.6m approximately 500mm wide. Are you interested I can easily grab them

The trouble with any form of soft matting is it doesn't effectively spread the load across the full surface as a rigid matt would do. The heavier the vehicle is only compounds the problem. Constant working up and down of the salt by repeat traffic brings the water to the surface, much the same as working concrete does.

We had conveyor belt then switched to the current mats which are stiffer but still not rigid enough for our needs. If I could find a source for Marsden matting in Australia I'd buy a few lengths to trial.

Here is a list of possible options available in Oz,

It looks like there are Ground Stabilising Mats and Temporary Access Mats through to Temporary Construction Roadways ... deployment is the issue ...

http://www.profloor.com.au/

http://www.scteam.com.au/products/

http://www.jwaoil.com/products/durabase-matting/

http://www.mabeyhire.com.au/mabey-hire- ... w-zealand/

http://www.smarttrack.net.au/

and the Ultimate is this

http://www.army-technology.com/contract ... -trackway/



Pete