Talk:Washboarding

Failed GA nomination
I failed this article because there is not a caption for the image, there are no references, and it does not contain any sections. Some P.  E  rson  20:18, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree. This is far from comprehensive or up to any GA standards. Kafziel 20:22, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

I wonder about the overall validity of this article as it discounts the concept of "forced oscilation" without providing any reason.--Flying DOT (talk) 13:27, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Comments by Jim McElwaine
I added references to research I've been involved on this topic and made some other changes to the page. Since then these references have been removed. I'm going to revert the changes. If you object or have comments on why these references shouldn't be there let's discuss. Frost heaving is completely different effect to washboard road caused by freeze thaw cycles. Jim McElwaine (talk) 18:35, 11 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, your own website is a self published source. I think would be a better link and establish this as a reliable source. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:15, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
 * And I took out the sentence about the contrasting points of view being in the references, as it is generally assumed that any information in the article is supported by the references. I also added a see also link for frost heaving as it is similar from the driver's perspective, even if the underlying causes are different. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:19, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Which direction do the ripples move?
This page states that the "ripples will slowly grow and move in the direction of the vehicles," but there is no source for this claim. This page shows how the moguls on ski runs move uphill (against the direction of skier travel) and I would think that this would hold true for washboarding on roads as well. Dan Hickstein (talk) 18:47, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes I'm familiar with this very nice work. Probably if the mogul skiers went fast enough the moguls would go downhill :-) This is a good point. There is little real observation from the actual roads. In lab experiments the ripples can go either way. I will update the page accordingly. Jim McElwaine (talk) 11:40, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Unsprung Secrets
This article seems to offer no causal explanation for the washboarding phenomenon, in particular its manifestation on paved roadways. Maybe other published references are available which do. If not, permit me to suggest an external link to a proposed explanation (admittedly original) just published at http://niquette.com/puzzles/unsprngs.htm#Pavement_Corrugation Paul Niquette (talk) 11:24, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for calling attention to your work, Paul. The scope of this article has been confined to unbound road material. I'm not experienced with washboarding on paved roads. Interesting. If you were able to find sufficient published literature, perhaps the scope could be expanded here. Cheers, User:HopsonRoad 00:28, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Safety issues
Since the majority of the traffic to this page will be non-engineers, please consider using more lay language on this topic and please make sure to add relevant language to the lay population (preventing washboarding, safety issues relevant to the lay driver who bothers to take the time to look this up, et cetera)

thanks!RL (talk) 16:06, 22 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks, RL, for your suggestion. I've had many lay readers review this article with little difficulty in comprehension. i did add an introduction to the Maintenance section, since that used engineering terminology with no translation into the vernacular. i hope that this helps. User:HopsonRoad 23:35, 24 March 2015 (UTC)