NAME: WANDERA DISII DAVID Date: 19/12/2022

REGISTRATION No. F16/139887/2020

FCE 345 – HIGHWAY MATERIALS

As material engineer tasked with identification and selection of quality material for
construction, this will be as detailed herein;

Selection and use of naturally occurring materials for pavement construction and earthwork
embankments, including in situ sub-grade, imported capping layer and drainage materials.

The types of construction materials discussed are

• Common fill
• In situ sub-grade
• Capping layer (imported sub-grade/select fill)
• Filter and drainage aggregate
• Sub-base
• Base
• Surfacing aggregate

Particular attention has to be given to the distinct character of the soils and weathered rocks from
the region where the construction of pavement is being undertaken.

The performance of a construction material can be considered as being influenced by a

combination of internal factors, such as engineering characteristics, and external factors such as
climate, construction methods and maintenance.

Selection and Assessment Criteria (For Quality Material)

- Common Fill
The construction of a road is along an alignment; to designed gradients and curvature, commonly
involves the adjustment of natural ground levels by cut and fills operations
Because of the large volumes frequently required, fill materials are generally won from the
nearest acceptable sources and in cases where alternatives are scarce there is an emphasis on
adaptation of available material rather than source selection.

The basic quality and performance selection requirements for fill material can be considered as;
placed stability; resistance to erosion, degradability and workability. Fill material acceptability is
generally less rigidly controlled with respect to geotechnical parameters than pavement
materials.
Differing projects are likely to have variable importance attached to the influencing factors.
Laboratory analysis guidance
Fill specifications will be based on relationships involving moisture content, plasticity and
undrained strength,
Apart from the geotechnical difficulties, the selection of fill materials has, in most instances, to
be pragmatically based. Common fill has to be selected from available materials within an
economic haul distance. Potential fill materials that may be marginal in terms of standard
suitability criteria but which are acceptable in economic and fundamental engineering terms need
not be rejected out of hand. In general, the fundamental requirements of a fill material are that:

- It is placeable with available construction technology

- It is possible to achieve the target design strengths
- It is durable in terms of project requirements.

- In Situ Sub-Grade
The sub-grade can be defined in terms of location as the upper 600mm of the road foundation. It
is required to be able to resist repeated stressing from traffic loads without rupture and without
large recoverable and irrecoverable strain throughout the design life of the road. In addition, this
layer may have to support larger stresses during construction.
The character of in situ sub-grade material is determined by the geological and weathering
conditions of the soil-rock profiles underlying the road. This means that sub-grade materials are
likely to vary along the route, and its interaction with external factors such as climate and the
local moisture regime.

Imported Capping Layer

Capping layer materials, sometimes referred to as imported sub-grade, are commonly required as
a cover for weak or unsuitable in situ sub-grade or on top of a common fill embankments.

Unbound Granular Pavement Materials

Laboratory analysis guidance

Unbound granular material employed either as sub-base or a base pavement layer has to perform
a number of functions:
• Provide a working platform for construction
• Provide a structural layer for load spreading and protection of underlying layers
• Provide a layer with resistance to rutting
• Act as a drainage layer.
There may be conflict between these requirements, for example between a tightly graded
material to take load and resist rutting and a more open textured material for good drainage.
Unbound granular materials may be in the form of:
• Graded crushed stones (GCS)
• Natural sands and gravels (either “as-dug” or processed)
• Dry bound macadam (DBM)/wet bound macadam (WBM)

The internal factors governing the engineering performance of unbound gravel aggregate are:
the:
- engineering behavior and
- geometric properties of its constituent particles,
- its mass grading and
- the plasticity of its fines.

- Bitumen Bound Granular Pavement and Surfacing Aggregate

The main qualities required are:
• Resistance to slow crushing
• Resistance to rapid loading or impact
• Resistance to stripping, or to have the ability to maintain adhesion with the binder)
• Durability, or the resistance to in service weatherability.
• Hardness or resistance to abrasion or attrition (surfacing material only)
• Resistance to polishing (surfacing material only)

Adhesion failure implies a breakdown of the bonding forces between a stone aggregate and its
coating of bituminous binder, leading to physical separation. Mechanical failure by fretting and
subsequent raveling of the surface is one possible, but invariable, consequence of adhesion
failure.
Apart from the petrologic nature of the material its cleanliness or freedom from dust is also a
factor.
Limits of less that 1% dust are difficult to obtain by screening alone and washing of the
aggregate may be required
The resistance to abrasion is related to the petrological properties of the material:
- the proportion of hard minerals;
- the proportion and orientation of cleaved minerals;
- grain size;
- the nature of the inter-particle bonding or cementation and the proportion of stable
minerals resistant to weathering.
Resistance to polishing is considered a function of material fabric, texture and mineralogy.
Rocks which contain minerals of differing hardness and which show a degree of friability tend to
give high polishing resistance.