1 HIGHWAY ENGINEERING II

Chapter 1.
Introduction
 Ice Breaker
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1. What do you understand by pavements in highway

engineering?
2. What kind of problems did you notice on the roads
of Ethiopia?
3. List the materials used for the construction of roads.
4. What do you think it takes to become a good
pavement/material engineer?
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1.1. General
 The field of pavement design is dynamic & the concepts are
changing with time as technology develops and new
equipment emerges for site investigation, material testing and
traffic data collection, and new data become available.
 In the early stage, pavement design was carried out by a
rule-of-thumb procedure based entirely on past experience.
 Through the observation of performances of the already
constructed roads, highway engineers became aware that
pavement performance is dependent on the subgrade soils.
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1.1. General (Cont’d)

 Pavements constructed over plastic soils showed higher
distress than those constructed over granular deposits. With
the knowledge of soil mechanics, pavement design was
made with soil classification.
 With the increase in traffic and usage and development of
heavy transport means, the deterioration of pavements due
to heavy trucks and aircrafts necessitated a more rational
approach of design.
 This led to full-scale and laboratory experiments in
different countries at different capacities.
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1.2. Overview of Pavement Structures

 A pavement is a layered structure that:
 has sufficient total thickness and internal strength to carry
expected traffic loads, and distribute them over the subgrade soil
without overstressing;
 have adequate properties to prevent or minimize the penetration
or internal accumulation of moisture; and
 have a surface that is reasonably smooth and skid resistant at the
same time, as well as, reasonably resistant to wear, distortion
and deterioration by vehicle loads and weather.
 Types of pavements:
 Flexible Pavements
 Rigid Pavements
 Combined pavement
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1.2.1. Flexible Pavement

 A flexible pavement is one, which has low flexural strength, and the load is
largely transmitted to the subgrade soil through the lateral distribution of
stresses with increasing depth.
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1.2.1. Flexible Pavement (Cont’d)

 Types of flexible pavement constructions

 conventional flexible pavement,

 full-depth asphalt pavement, and

 contained rock asphalt mat (CRAM) construction (which

is still in the experimental stage and has not been widely

accepted for practical use).
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1.2.1. Flexible Pavement (Cont’d)

 Conventional flexible pavements are multilayered

structures with better materials on top where the

intensity of stress is high and inferior materials at the
bottom where the intensity is low.
 This design principle makes possible to use local

materials and usually results in a most economical

design.
 This is particularly true in regions where high-quality

materials are expensive but local materials of inferior

quality are readily available.
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1.2.1. Flexible Pavement (Cont’d)

 Full-depth asphalt pavements are constructed by placing
one or more layers of hot-mix asphalt (HMA) directly on
the subgrade or improved subgrade.
 This concept was conceived by the Asphalt Institute and is
generally considered the most cost-effective and dependable
type of asphalt pavement for heavy traffic and quite popular
in areas where local materials are not available.
 Starting from the top, a conventional flexible pavement
normally consists of
 surface course,
 base course,
 subbase course,
 compacted subgrade, and natural subgrade.
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1.2.2. Rigid Pavements

 Are pavement structures constructed of cement concrete slabs,

which derive their capacity to withstand vehicle loads from

flexural strength or beam strength due to high modulus of
elasticity.
 High flexural strength permits the vehicle load on cement

concrete slab to be distributed over a relatively wider area and

to bridge over minor irregularities of the soil than flexible
pavements and thus, variation in the subgrade soil strength has
little influence.
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1.2.2. Rigid Pavements (Cont’d)

 There is always a necessity to build a base course under

cement concrete slab where the subgrade soil cannot provide a

uniform support, or for one or more of the following reasons:
 Control of pumping
 Control of frost action
 Improvement of drainage
 Control of shrinkage and swell
 Expedition of Construction.
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1.2.2.1. Types of Rigid Pavements

 Jointed plain concrete pavement (JPCP): plain concrete
pavements constructed with closely spaced contraction
joints. Dowels or aggregate interlocks may be used for
load transfer across the joints.
 Jointed reinforced concrete pavement (JRCP): are
concrete pavements with steel reinforcements in the form
of wire mesh or deformed bars mainly to allow the use of
longer joint spacing but do not increase the structural
capacity of pavements.
 Because of the longer panel length, dowels are required for
load transfer across the joints.
 The amount of distributed steel increases with the increase in
joint spacing and is designed to hold the slab together after
cracking.
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1.2.2.1. Types of Rigid Pavements (Cont’d)

 Continuous reinforced concrete pavement (CRCP): are
reinforced concrete pavements designed joint-free for the
purpose of eliminating joints, which are the weak spots in rigid
pavements.
 The elimination of joints would decrease the thickness of
pavement required.
 Pre-stressed concrete pavement (PCP): the pre-application of
a compressive stress to the concrete to greatly reduce the tensile
stress caused by the traffic loads and thus decreases the
thickness of concrete required.
 The pre-stressed concrete pavements have less probability of
cracking and fewer transverse joints and therefore result in less
maintenance and longer pavement life.
 Introduction
Types of Rigid Pavements
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 Comparison of Rigid vs. Flexible

 Load transfer
 Design precision/life
 Maintenance requirement
 Initial cost
 Stage construction
 Surface characteristics
 Traffic dislocation during construction
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1.3. Basic Design Factors

 Traffic Loading:

 loading configuration;
 number of repetitions;
 tyre pressure; and
 speed of traffic loading
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1.3. Basic Design Factors (Cont’d)

 Environment:
 temperature,
 Flexible pavement – elastic/visco-elastic properties of
bituminous materials
 Rigid pavement – warping/curling stresses
 Frost in the sub-grade - heave and stronger subgrade in
the winter but a much weaker subgrade in the spring
 precipitation
 Water requirement during construction;
 Strength of pavement structure; and
 Surface water drainage.
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1.3. Basic Design Factors (cont’d.)

 Materials:
 Properties of soils, aggregates, bituminous binders, cement, and
their mixtures under traffic loading in a given environmental
conditions is fundamental for designing a sound pavement
structure
 Performance and Failure Criteria:
 Gravel roads – defects include: dustiness, potholes, stoniness,
corrugations, ruts, cracks, ravelling, erosion, slipperiness,
impassibility and loss of wearing course material – function of
properties of materials of construction, alignment, volume of
traffic, and etc.
 Flexible pavement – fatigue cracking ; rutting; and thermal
cracking
 Rigid pavement - fatigue cracking; pumping ; and joint
deterioration
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Final words and Questions?