page_title: Earthworks (engineering)
section_title: Mass haul planning
hierarchical_section_title: Earthworks (engineering) / Mass haul planning
caption_attribution_description: English: Excavation and removal of dirt at the Culebra Cut, Panama Canal (Original title: Where the work is being pushed with greatest energy - the famous Culebra Cut, Panama Canal)
context_page_description: Earthworks are engineering works created through the processing of parts of the earth's surface involving quantities of soil or unformed rock.
context_section_description: Engineers need to concern themselves with issues of geotechnical engineering (such as soil density and strength) and with quantity estimation to ensure that soil volumes in the cuts match those of the fills, while minimizing the distance of movement. In the past, these calculations were done by hand using a slide rule and with methods such as Simpson's rule. Earthworks cost is a function of hauled amount x hauled distance. The goal of mass haul planning is to determine these amounts and the goal of mass haul optimization is to minimize either or both.
  Now they can be performed with a computer and specialized software, including optimisation on haul cost and not haul distance (as haul cost is not proportional to haul distance).
caption: Excavation of over 76 million cubic metres (23 million cubic metres of which was additional to the planned amount due to landslides) for the Culebra Cut, Panama canal construction photo taken circa 1907
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