Dr.

APJ Abdul Kalam, IIIT-Ongole Institute

RGUKT AP

TRANSPORTATION ENGINEERING
UNIT-III : Highway materials
Lecture – 3.1
Kenchugundu Srikanth
Assistant Professor, Department of Civil Engineering
International Institute of Information Technology, Ongole
Email: kgs@rguktong.ac.in
Introduction Highway Materials

Pavement:
• Structure for carrying vehicular loads

Pavement structure:

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Introduction Highway Materials

Pavement materials:
• Soil, flyash, aggregate, cement, bitumen,
different types of modified binders, emulsions,
cement concrete, bituminous mix, RCC, recycled
materials, different waste materials, other
innovative materials, geotextiles, geomembranes

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Introduction Highway Materials

Where do We use them?

Pavement Materials used in different layers of pavement such as
1. Embankment
2. Subgrade
3. granular sub base
4. granular base
5. different bituminous layers
6. stabilised layers
7. cement concrete slabs

Pavement Materials used for construction of new pavements,

reconstruction of pavements, repair, maintenance

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Introduction Highway Materials

Function of Materials ?
Pavements built with pavement materials must
– PERFORM satisfactorily
– Constructability
– Durability over a specified period
– Maintainability over a specified period
– Recyclability

For this the materials must have

• Adequate strength
• Mechanical properties
• Durability
• Drainage characteristics
• Workability

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Introduction Highway Materials

Why should we study ?

• Pavement’s (pavement materials’) performance deteriorates when

pavements deteriorate
• Pavements fail when some or all of the materials fail
• Pavement performance/failure is explained in terms of the
performance/failure of materials

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Introduction Highway Materials

What we study ?
• Conditions to which the materials will be subjected to at different
stages (at source, transportation, storage, construction , during
service period and recycling and reuse)
• Failure mode(s) for each type of material ,Threshold values of
failure conditions
• Fundamental properties (chemical and mechanical) of the
materials and their correlation to material and pavement
performance
• Selection/Design of Optimal materials

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Soil Highway Materials

Soil:
Soil consists mainly of mineral matter formed by the
disintegration of rocks, by the action of water, frost, temperature,
pressure or by plant or by animal life
 Used in embankment portion, Subgrade, shoulders
 Used in its natural form or in a processed or stabilized form
 The characteristics of soil grains depend on the size, shape, surface
texture, chemical composition and electrical charges on the surface
of the fine particles
 Moisture and dry density influence the engineering behaviour of
the soil mass

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Soil Highway Materials

Desirable properties of Soil as a highway material:

1. Stability
2. Incompressibility
3. Permanency of strength
4. Minimum changes in volume and stability
5. Good drainage
6. Ease of compaction

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Soil Highway Materials

Classification of soils:
1. Particle size classification
2. Textural classification
3. Highway Research Board (HRB) classification
4. Unified Soil classification System
5. Indian Standard classification System

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Soil Highway Materials

Highway Research Board (HRB) classification:

• Generally adopted in highway engineering for the classification
of subgrade soils
• Mainly based on three laboratory tests
1. Sieve analysis
2. Liquid limit
3. Plastic limit
• Soils are divided into 7 groups from A-1, A-2,….., A-7

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Soil Highway Materials

Highway Research Board (HRB) classification:

Fines passing through 0.075mm Sieve

Less than 35% Greater than 35%

A-1, A-2, A-3 A-4, A-5, A-6, A-7

Fine grained or silty

Granular soils clay

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HRB Classification of Soils Highway Materials

A-1-a Stone fragments or gravel

A-1
A-1-b Coarse sand
HRB Classification of soils

A-2 Sub divided into 4 groups Granular soils

Uniformly graded medium or fine

A-3 Beach and desert sand
sand

Silty Soils. Non, moderately

A-4 LL < 40%, PI < 10%
plastic

Silty soils with LL>40%, High elastic or compressible soils

A-5
PI<10% with micaceous character

Plastic clays with LL < 40%

A-6 High volume change properties
and PI > 10%

Clayey soils with LL > 40% Low permeability and high volume
A-7
and PI > 10% changes

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HRB Classification of Soils Highway Materials

Group Index of soils:

• In order to classify the fine grained soils within one group
and for judging their suitability as subgrade material, an
indexing system has been introduced in HRB classification
which is termed as Group Index (GI) by assigning numerical
numbers

• Group index is a function of

1. Percentage material passing 0.074mm sieve
2. Liquid Limit
3. Plastic Limit

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HRB Classification of Soils Highway Materials

Group Index of soils:

• Group Index is given by equation below

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HRB Classification of Soils Highway Materials

Group Index of soils:

• GI value ranges from zero to twenty ( 0 to 20 )
• Higher the value of GI poorer is the soil as the subgrade
material
• The classification of fine grained soils ( from A-4 to A-7 ) is
done based on the value of liquid limit and plastic limit and
is done by using the plasticity chart of HRB classification
• Example for soil designation as per HRB

A-5 (5)
Group Index number

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HRB Classification of Soils Highway Materials

Group Index of soils:

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Tests on Soils Highway Materials

Tests on soils:
• Soil strength is determined by conducting tests

1. Shear test : conducted on laboratory samples under

specified conditions (loading, compaction, drainage)

2.Bearing test : Usually conducted in field (plate loading)

3. Penetration test : measure resistance of soil sample

(prepared to standard conditions) to the penetration of a
standard plunger )

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Tests on Soils Highway Materials

California Bearing Ratio ( CBR) :

• It was developed by California State Highway department

• Method for evaluating strength of subgrade soil and other

pavement materials for design and construction of flexible
pavements

• CBR test denotes a measure of resistance of penetration of a

soil or flexible pavement material of standard plunger of 50 mm
diameter at a rate of 1.25 mm/minute under controlled test
conditions

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Tests on Soils Highway Materials

Laboratory determination of CBR :

• The laboratory CBR apparatus consists of
1. Mould of dia 150mm with base and collar
2. Loading frame
3. Cylindrical plunger of 50mm dia
4. Dial gauge

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Tests on Soils Highway Materials

Laboratory determination of CBR :

• The specimen in the mould is compacted to a dry density
corresponding to the minimum state of compaction likely to be
achieved in practice

• In the absence of information specimen is compacted to the

maximum dry density at OMC
• Heavy Compaction for high traffic roads ( Exp ways, NH, SH)
• Light compaction for low volume roads

• Two specimens are prepared

1. Specimen 1: Unsoaked
2. Specimen 2: Soaked

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Tests on Soils Highway Materials

Laboratory determination of CBR :

• Specimen 1 is prepared to simulate the normal field
conditions, so the moulding water content is equal to the
equilibrium water content which the soil is likely to attain after
the construction of the pavement

• Specimen 2 is subjected to four days soaking to simulate the

worst conditions in the field and swelling and water absorption
vale

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Tests on Soils Highway Materials

Laboratory determination of CBR :

• The surcharge weight is placed on the top of specimen and is
placed under the plunger of the loading frame

• The load values are noted for the corresponding penetration

values
S.No. Penetration (mm) Load (Kg) or Pressure

1 0
2 0.5
3 1.0
4 1.5
5 2.0

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Tests on Soils Highway Materials

Laboratory determination of CBR :

• A graph is drawn between load and penetration

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Tests on Soils Highway Materials

Laboratory determination of CBR :

• For Specimen 1 the curve is with convexity upwards
• For specimen 2 the curve is obtained with initial upward
concavity. This is due to
1. Soft or slushy top layer of soaked soil after soaking in
water
2. Top surface of specimen is not even
3. Penetrating plunger is not vertical sch that the plunger is
not fully in contact with specimen
• Hence correction is applied by shifting origin
• The corrected origin is established by drawing a tangent from
steepest point on the curve , to obtain corrected origin as
shown in figure

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Tests on Soils Highway Materials

Laboratory determination of CBR :

• The loads corresponding to penetration of 2.5mm and 5.0 mm
values are noted
• CBR is calculated by using the relation

𝑳𝒐𝒂𝒅 𝒐𝒓 𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒔𝒖𝒓𝒆 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝟐. 𝟓𝒎𝒎 𝒐𝒓 𝟓. 𝟎 𝒎𝒎 𝒑𝒆𝒏𝒆𝒕𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏

𝑪𝑩𝑹, % =
𝑺𝒕𝒂𝒏𝒅𝒂𝒓𝒅 𝒍𝒐𝒂𝒅 𝒐𝒓 𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒔𝒖𝒓𝒆 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝟐. 𝟓𝒎𝒎 𝒐𝒓 𝟓. 𝟎 𝒎𝒎

Penetration (mm) Standard Load ( kg) Standard pressure ( kg/cm2)

2.5 1370 70
5.0 2055 105

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Tests on Soils Highway Materials

Laboratory determination of CBR :

• The CBR value at 2.5 mm penetration is reported as CBR value
of the material

• Normally the CBR value at 2.5 mm penetration is higher than

5.0 mm and the higher value

• If CBR value at 5.0mm is more the test is repeated and if the

test gives the similar results, the higher value of CBR is
reported

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Tests on Soils Highway Materials

Plate Load Test:

• The apparatus consists of
1. Set of plates of diameter 750, 600, 450 and 300 mm
2. Loading device consists of jack and proving ring
arrangement
3. Datum frame and dial gauge to measure settlement

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Tests on Soils Highway Materials

Plate Bearing Test:

• To calculate the Modulus of Subgrade Reaction
• Modulus of subgrade reaction is the reaction pressure sustained by
the soil sample under a rigid plate of standard diameter per unit
settlement measured at a specified pressure or settlement
• It is a input parameter for design of rigid pavements

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