5

Drainage
5.1 Introduction

The importance of adequate drainage was realised by Roman road builders, but
after the decline of the Roman Empire the standard of highway construction in
Europe declined and planned drainage became almost non-existent. With the advent
of industrialisation increasing attention was paid to the removal of surface water
and the lowering of the water-table beneath the pavement. In the United Kingdom
the pioneer road-building of Telford and Macadam laid stress on the incorporation
of a camber or crown into the road so that surface water could be quickly removed.
Increasing urban development made open ditches inappropriate and led to the
increasing use of road gulleys connected to road sewers as the means of removing
surface water. Improvements in the quality of road materials have resulted in
impervious pavements, making the problem of sub-soil usually greatest in the
cuttings, where cut-off drainage is required.

5.2 Surface-water Drainage Works

Before construction of the pavement layers is carried out it is necessary to complete

all underground pipe and cable crossings. Where this is not possible, ducts are
normally placed in advance and their positions carefully recorded.
All road drainage works, surface-water sewers and associated manholes are
completed and the gullies excavated for and placed in position. Road gullies are
frequently of clayware, sometimes of high-strength polypropylene or a similar
plastic material. Frequently they are 375 mm in internal diameter, have a maximum
internaldepthof900 mm and are fitted with a 150 mm outlet. It is advisable for the
gully to be fitted with a rodding eye in case the connection between gully and sewer
becomes blocked by road debris. A typical arrangement of such a gully is shown in
figure 5.1. The 150 mm connection from gully to sewer is then surrounded with
150 mm of concrete where it is close to the formation level.
Finally the gully frame and grating is set on two or three courses of engineering
bricks so that its upper surface is at the finished road-surface level. Backfilling of
the trenches for gully connections is an important operation which should be

141
R. J. Salter, Highway Design and Construction
© R.J. Salter 1988
142 HIGHWAY DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION

Figure 5.1 A typical street gully with rodding eye

closely supervised to ensure that material is replaced in layers not exceeding 150 mm
in thickness, each layer being well compacted by hand or mechanical ramming.
Inadequate compaction of gully-trench backfJlling can frequently result in serious
settlement after the road has been completed.
When constructing major roads there is the obvious difference in scale between
the major road and the residential road. Taking rural motorways as an example of
major road construction, the most obvious differences are the use of hard
shoulders at the outer edges of the dual carriageways and also of a central reserva-
tion. There is also a greater emphasis on the lowering of the level of ground-water
table by the use of French drains in the central reservation and cut-off French
drains at the outer edges of the hard shoulders. Details of a typical motorway slip-
road pavement cross-section are given in figure 5.2.
In major road construction in rural areas there will be few drainage connections
beneath the carriage ways so that the major drainage works will be the placing of the
French drains. These are used to remove surface water and to maintain a lowered
water-table. Surface water flows only infrequently and, provided the drain is not
blocked or surcharged, ground-water levels will not be adversely affected by the
two functions.
Pipes that may be used for French drains include open-jointed concrete and
clayware pipes and perforated pipes of concrete, pitch fibre or asbestos cement.
Filter material will usually be open-textured material of 37.5 mm nominal size and
only 0 to 5 per cent passing a 10 mm sieve. Over a period of time the filter material
will need to be renewed as it becomes blocked with fine material carried from the
road surface.
The width of trench that has to be backfilled is usually limited to the outside
diameter of the pipe plus 300 mm when trenches are not deeper than 1.5 m below
finished level. For deeper trenches the trench width is the outside diameter plus