Pavement History

Introduction
A brief view of how pavement design, construction and performance has evolved should
help provide perspective on present and, possible, future practice. This short view into the
past will start with the Romans, then move on to the Macadam and Telford era, then into
the first 150 years of asphalt and portland cement concrete pavement. The evolution of
pavement design will emphasize the U.S.A. and the U.K. a bit more than for other parts of
the world.

Roman Roads
In fairness, the Carthaginians are generally credited with being the first to construct and
maintain a road system (about 600 B.C.) according to Tillson [1900]. The Romans
eventually decided that their neighbors across the Mediterranean were a bit of a threat to
the empire destroying Carthage in 146 B.C. (The Carthage ruins are located in Tunisia
(Northern Africa) next door to Algeria (on the left) and Libya (on the right so to speak).)
It is suggested that the Romans took up the practice of a military road system from the
Carthaginians. It is estimated that the Romans built about 87,000 km of roads within their
empire (about equal to the length of the U.S. Interstate system).
Apparently, there is no record of traditional roads in the U.K. prior to the Romans
[Collins and Hart, 1936]. For the most part, the main Roman roads in the U.K. (total of
about 4 100 km) was for military purposes in that they connected camps which were about
30 km apart (or about one days march) [Collins and Hart, 1936; Rose, 1935; Leger, 1875].
Since the primary purpose of these roads was for foot soldiers, the roads were straight, but
virtually without regard to grade. They generated high noise levels, were rough and labor
intensive (slave and statue labor often used).
The Roman design for their primary U.K. roads generally consisted of four layers (top to
bottom) as follows [Collins and Hart, 1936]:

Summa Crusta (surfacing): Smooth, polygonal blocks bedded in underlying layer.

Nucleus: A kind of base layer composed of gravel and sand with lime cement.
Rudus: The third layer was composed of rubble masonry and smaller stones also set
in lime mortar.
Statumen: Two or three courses of flat stones set in lime mortar.

The total thickness was as much as 0.9 m and road widths of 4.3 m or less. An illustration
of Roman pavement structure near Radstock, England, is shown as Figure 1. Roman roads
in some countries have been up to 2.4 m thick. These structures had crowned (sloped)

surfaces to enhance drainage and often incorporated ditches and/or underground drains.
As one might expect, Roman road building was varied to suit local conditions and materials
not unlike today actually. The Romans departed the U.K. about AD 406. Road design
and construction languished for about 1,200 years thereafter.

Roman road construction was not inexpensive. Updated construction estimates of the
Appian Way in Italy are about $2,000,000 per km (updated estimates following Rose
[1935]
and
Leger
[1875]).
The oldest known road in the U.K. is near the River Brue in southwestern England [Coles,
1989]. Actually, the road is a 6,000 year old walkway which was discovered in 1970 in a
peat bog. The construction of the road coincides with the arrival of the first farmers in the
U.K. about 4,000 B.C.

Telford and Macadam

Telford
Thomas Telford (born 1757) served his apprenticeship as a building mason [Smiles, 1904].
Because of this, he extended his masonry knowledge to bridge building. During lean times,
he carved grave-stones and other ornamental work (about 1780). Eventually, Telford
became the Surveyor of Public Works for the county of Salop [Smiles, 1904], thus
turning his attention more to roads.
Telford attempted, where possible, to build roads on relatively flat grades (no more than 1
in 30) in order to reduce the number of horses needed to haul cargo. Further, the pavement
section was about 350 to 450 mm in depth and generally specified in three layers. The
bottom layer was comprised of large stones (100 mm) wide and 75 to 180 mm in depth)
[Collins and Hart, 1936]. It is this specific layer which makes the Telford design unique
[Baker, 1903]. On top of this were placed two layers of stones of 65 mm maximum size

(about 150 to 250 mm total thickness) followed by a wearing course of gravel about 40 mm
thick (refer to Figure 2). It was estimated that this system would support a load
corresponding to 88 N/mm (500 lb per in. of width).

Macadam
John Macadam (born 1756) observed that most of the paved U.K. roads in early 1800s
were composed of rounded gravel [Smiles, 1904]. He knew that angular aggregate over a
well-compacted subgrade would perform substantially better. He used a sloped subgrade
surface to improve drainage (unlike Telford who used a flat subgrade surface) on which he
placed angular aggregate (hand-broken, maximum size 75 mm) in two layers for a total
depth of about 200 mm [Gillette, 1906]. On top of this, the wearing course was placed
(about 50 mm thick with a maximum aggregate size of 25 mm) [Collins, 1936]. Macadams
reason for the 25 mm maximum aggregate size was to provide a smooth ride for wagon
wheels. Thus, the total depth of a typical Macadam pavement was about 250 mm (refer to
Figure 3). An interesting quote attributed to Macadam about allowable maximum aggregate
sizes was that no stone larger than will enter a mans mouth should go into a road
[Gillette, 1906]. The largest permissible load for this type of design was estimated to be
158 N/mm (900 lb per in. width).
In 1815, Macadam was appointed surveyor-general of the Bristol roads and was now able
to use his design on numerous projects. It proved successful enough that the term
macadamized became a term for this type of pavement design and construction. The term
macadam is also used to indicate broken stone pavement [Baker, 1903]. By 1850,
about 2,200 km of macadam type pavements were in use in the urban areas of the UK.
Macadam realized that the layers of broken stone would eventually become bound
together by fines generated by traffic. With the introduction of the rock crusher, large
mounds of stone dust and screenings were generated [Gillette, 1906]. This resulted in use of
such fines resulting in the more traditional dense graded base materials which in turn
produced
pavement
thicknesses
as
thin
as
100
to
150
mm.
The first macadam pavement in the U.S. was constructed in Maryland in 1823.

Early Thickness Trends

Thus, we have seen pavement structures decrease from about 0.9 m (3 feet) for Roman
designs to 350 to 450 mm for Telford designs, to about 250 mm for Macadam designs, to
100 mm at about the turn of the century (refer to Figure 4). (Naturally, the thinnest
pavements were not always used.) The Massachusetts Highway Commission standard
cross-section for macadam construction was 150 mm thick as reported by Gillette in 1906.
This thickness was also used on New York state roads at about that time.

Up to the
early 1900s, the design emphasis was placed on the use of fixed standards occasionally
modified for local soil conditions. Further, the need for more durable pavements was
mandated by the changing vehicle fleet. The following partial quote by L. W. Page,
Director of U. S. Office of Public Roads (contained in a 1907 report [Judson, 1908])
illustrates the problem:
The existence of our macadam roads depends upon the retention of the road-dust
formed by the wearing of the surface. But the action of rubber-tire motor-cars moving at
high speed soon strips the macadam road of all fine material, the result being that the road
soon disintegrates

Early Bituminous Pavement

Tar Macadam
It appears that the first tar macadam pavement was placed outside of Nottingham (Lincoln
Road) in 1848 [Collins and Hart, 1936; Hubbard, 1910]. At that time, such pavements were
considered suitable only for light traffic (not for urban streets). Coal tar (the binder) had
been available in the U.K. from about 1800 as a residue from coal-gas lighting. Possibly
this was one of the earliest efforts to recycle waste materials into a pavement!
Soon after the Nottingham project, tar macadam projects were built in Paris (1854) and
Knoxville, Tennessee (1866) [Hubbard, 1910]. In 1871 in Washington, D.C., a tar
concrete was extensively used. Sulfuric acid was used as a hardening agent and various
materials such as sawdust, ashes, etc. were used in the mixture [Hubbard, 1910]. Over a
seven-year period, 630,000 m2 were placed. In part, due to lack of attention in specifying
the tar, most of these streets failed within a few years of construction. This resulted in tar
being discredited, thereby boosting the asphalt industry [Hubbard, 1910]. However, some
of these tar-bound surface courses in Washington, D.C., survived substantially longer,
about 30 years. For these mixes, the tar binder constituted about 6 percent by weight of the
total mix (air voids of about 17 percent). Further, the aggregate was crushed with about 20
percent passing the No. 10 sieve. The wearing course was about 50 mm thick.
As a side note, the term Tarmac was a proprietary product in the U.K. in the early 1900s
[Hubbard, 1910]. Actually it was a plant mixed material, but was applied to the road
surface cold. Tarmac consisted of crushed blast furnace slag coated with tar, pitch,
portland cement and a resin.

Sheet Asphalt
Sheet asphalt placed on a concrete base (foundation) became popular during the mid-1800s
with the first such pavement of this type being built in Paris in 1858. The first such
pavement placed in the U.S. was in Newark, New Jersey, in 1870. Baker [1903] describes
this pavement system as (1) a wearing course 40 to 50 mm thick composed of asphalt
cement and sand, (2) a binder course (about 40 mm thick) composed of broken stone and
asphalt cement, and finally, (3) a base layer of hydraulic cement concrete or pavement
rubble (old granite blocks, bricks, etc.). Generally, the concrete layer was 100 mm thick for
light traffic and 150 mm thick for heavy traffic [Baker, 1903]. The final thickness was
based on the weight of the traffic, the strength of the concrete and the soil support.