Aggregate base is typically composed of crushed rock capable of passing through a 3⁄4 in (19.05 mm) rock screen. The component particles will vary in size from 3/4 inch down to dust. The material can be made of virgin (newly mined) rock, or of recycled asphalt and concrete.
Base is used as a base course in roadways, as a base course for cement pads and foundations, and as backfill material for underground pipelines and other underground utilities.
"Base course" refers to the sub-base layer of an asphalt roadway. Generally consisting of larger grade aggregate, spread and compacted to provide a stable base for further layers of aggregates or asphalt pavement. Aggregate base course is often referred to as ABC.
Famous quotes containing the words aggregate and/or base:
“We think of religion as the symbolic expression of our highest moral ideals; we think of magic as a crude aggregate of superstitions. Religious belief seems to become mere superstitious credulity if we admit any relationship with magic. On the other hand our anthropological and ethnographical material makes it extremely difficult to separate the two fields.”
—Ernst Cassirer (1874–1945)
“Yet herein will I imitate the sun,
Who doth permit the base contagious clouds
To smother up his beauty from the world,
That when he please again to be himself,
Being wanted, he may be more wondered at
By breaking through the foul and ugly mists
Of vapors that did seem to strangle him”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)