Oda Bultum Institute of Technology (IOT), 2014/2021

1 HIGHWAY ENGINEERING I

Chapter 3.
Highway
Geometric
Design
Instructor: Leta Jirata
letajirata55gmail.com
 Chapter Contents
2

Design control and criteria

 Design Highway cross section
element
 Element of geometric design
 Design control and criteria
3

Introduction:-
 Geometric design: - the design or proportioning of the visible
elements of the street or highway.
 

 Highway geometric design:

 establishes the basic nature and quality of the vehicle
path, which has a primary effect upon the overall safety of
the street or highway.
 involves:- design of geometric elements of a highway &
fixation of standards with respect to various components.
 Stresses in Pavements
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2.1. Stresses in Flexible Pavements (Boussinesq)

 Foster and Ahlvin developed charts assuming the
half-space is incompressible with a Poisson ratio
of 0.5 for determining :
 vertical stress  ,
z
 radial stress  ,
r
 tangential stress  ,
t
 shear stress  , and
rz
 vertical deflection w.
 Stresses in Pavements
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2.1. Stresses in Flexible Pavements (Boussinesq), Cont’d

 After the stresses are obtained from the charts, the strains can

be computed from
z 
1
E
 z    r   t  
r 
1
E

 r    t   z  

t 
1
E

 t    z   r  

When a wheel load is applied over a single contact area, the most
critical stress, strain, and deflection occur under the center of the
circular area on the axis of symmetry, where rz = 0 and r = t, so
z and r are the principal stresses.
 Stresses in Pavements
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2.1. Stresses in Flexible Pavements (Boussinesq), Cont’d

 Chart developed by Foster and Ahlvin assuming the half-space
is incompressible with a Poisson ratio of 0.5 for determining
vertical stress z,
 Stresses in Pavements
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2.1. Stresses in Flexible Pavements (Boussinesq), Cont’d

 Chart developed by Foster and Ahlvin assuming the half-
space is incompressible with a Poisson ratio of 0.5 for
determining radial stress r,
 Stresses in Pavements
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2.1. Stresses in Flexible Pavements (Boussinesq), Cont’d

 Chart developed by Foster and Ahlvin assuming the half-
space is incompressible with a Poisson ratio of 0.5 for
determining tangential stress t ,
 Stresses in Pavements
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2.1. Stresses in Flexible Pavements (Boussinesq), Cont’d

 Chart developed by Foster and Ahlvin assuming the half-space is
incompressible with a Poisson ratio of 0.5 for determining shear
stress rz,
 Stresses in Pavements
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2.1. Stresses in Flexible Pavements (Boussinesq), Cont’d

 Chart developed by Foster and Ahlvin assuming the half-space
is incompressible with a Poisson ratio of 0.5 for determining
vertical deflection w,
 Stresses in Pavements
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2.1. Stresses in Flexible Pavements (Boussinesq), Cont’d

 The stresses, strain, and deflection on the axis of symmetry of
a wheel load applied to a pavement, which is similar to a load
applied to a flexible plate with radius a and a uniform
pressure q, can be computed by:

 z  q 1 
z3 
z 
 1   q 
1  2 
2z

z3 
1.5 
 
 
a2  z2   E  a 2
z 
2 0.5
a 2
 z2  1.5


 21    z z3  r 
1    q 1  2 
21    z

z3 
 
 r  q 1  2 


 a  z   a 2  z 2 1.5
2 2 0.5


2E  a 2
 z2  0.5
a 2
 z2  1.5


w
1    qa 
E
 2

a
 a  z 2  0.5

1  2
a

a2  z2  0.5
z 
 Stresses in Pavements
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2.1. Stresses in Flexible Pavements (Boussinesq), Cont’d

 When  = 0.5, the equation is simplified to

3qa
w

2E a  z 2

2 0 .5

 On the surface of the loaded half-space, z = 0, the

deflection is
w0 

2 1   2 qa 
E
 Stresses in Pavements
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2.1. Stresses in Flexible Pavements (Boussinesq), Cont’d

 If the load is applied on a rigid plate such as that used in a plate
loading test, the deflection is the same at all points on the plate, but
the pressure distribution under the plate is not uniform and is
expressed as:

qa
q r  

2a r
2

2 0.5

 The smallest pressure is at the centre and equal to one-half of the

average pressure. The pressure at the edge is infinity. The deflection
of the rigid plate is given by
 1   2  qa
w0 
2E
 Stresses in Pavements
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2.1. Stresses in Flexible Pavements (Boussinesq), Cont’d

 All the above analyses are based on the assumption that
the flexible pavement is homogenous, isotropic and, and
elastic properties are identical in every direction
throughout the material.
 With these assumptions, Bousinesq theory has the
following drawbacks:
 Flexible pavements are multilayered structures each
layer with its own modulus of elasticity.
 The pavement layers and the subgrade soil are not
perfectly elastic.
 The assumption that the load is uniformly distributed may not
 Stresses in Pavements
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2.1. Stresses in Flexible Pavements, Cont’d

 Burmister first developed solutions for a two-layer system and then
extended them to a three-layer system with the following basic
assumptions:
 Each layer is homogeneous, isotropic, and linearly elastic with an

elastic modulus E and a Poisson ratio, .

 The material is weightless and infinite in the lateral direction, but of

finite depth, h, whereas the underlying layer is infinite in both the

horizontal and vertical directions.
 A uniform pressure q is applied on the surface over a circular area of

radius a.
 The layers are in continuous contact and continuity conditions are

satisfied at the layer interfaces, as indicated by the same vertical

stress, shear stress, vertical displacement, and radial displacement.
 Stresses in Pavements
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An n-layer system
subjected to a circular load
 Stresses in Pavements
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2.1. Stresses in Flexible Pavements (Two-Layer Systems), Cont’d

 The exact case of a two-layer system is the full-depth
asphalt pavement construction in which a thick layer of hot-
mix asphalt is placed directly on the subgrade.
 If a pavement is composed of three layers (e.g., surface
course, base course, and subgrade) the stresses and strains in
the surface layer can be computed by combining the base
course and the subgrade into a single layer.
 Similarly, the stresses and strains in the subgrade can be
computed by combining the surface course and base course.
 Stresses in Pavements
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2.1. Stresses in Flexible Pavements (Two-Layer Systems),

Cont’d
 Vertical stress. The stresses in a two-layer system depends on
the modulus ratio E1/E2, and the thickness-radius ratio h1/a.
 The Figure shows the effect of pavement
layer on the distribution of vertical
stresses under the center of a
circular loaded area when the
thickness h1 of layer 1 is equal to
the radius of contact area, or
h1/a = 1 and a Poisson ratio
of 0.5 for all layers.
 Stresses in Pavements
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2.1. Stresses in Flexible Pavements (Two-Layer Systems)

 The following Figure also shows the effect of pavement
thickness and modulus ratio on the vertical stress, c, at the
pavement-sub-grade interface.
 Stresses in Pavements
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2.1. Stresses in Flexible Pavements (Two-Layer Systems),

Cont’d
 Deflection. Surface and interface deflections have been used as
criteria of pavement design. The surface deflection, w0, under a
uniformly circular loaded area is given in terms of the deflection
factor F2 as:

1.5qa
w0  F2
E2
 Stresses in Pavements
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2.1. Stresses in Flexible Pavements (Two-Layer Systems),

Cont’d
 Deflection. If the load is applied on a rigid plate, then
1.18qa
w0  F2
E2

 The interface deflection, w, between the two layers is

expressed in terms
qa of the deflection factor F as:
w F
E2

 The deflection factor, F, is different from F2 and provided as a

function of E1/E2, h1/a, and r/a, where r is the radial distance
from the centre of loaded area.
 Stresses in Pavements
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2.1. Stresses in Flexible Pavements (Two-Layer Systems), Cont’d

 Deflection. The deflection factor, F:
 Stresses in Pavements
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2.1. Stresses in Flexible Pavements (Two-Layer Systems)

 Critical tensile strain. The tensile strains at the bottom of the asphalt

layer have been used as a design criterion to prevent fatigue cracking.

 The critical tensile strain, e, at the bottom of the first layer for a two-

layer system can be determined by:

q
e Fe
E1
(For a single wheel)
 Stresses in Pavements
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2.1. Stresses in Flexible Pavements (Three-Layer System )

 With quick computational facilities available, the
analysis of three or more layers is no more a difficult
task.
 The three-layer system can be conceived as follows:
 Top layer, representing all the bituminous layers taken

together,
 Second layer, representing the unbound base and

subbase courses, and

 Third layer, representing the subgrade.
 Stresses in Pavements
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2.1. Stresses in Flexible Pavements (Three-Layer System )

 A three-layer system and the stresses at the interfaces on the axis
of symmetry.

z1 = vertical stress at interface 1

z2 = vertical stress at interface 2
r1 = radial stress at bottom of layer 1
’r1 = radial stress at top of layer 2
r2 = radial stress at bottom of layer 2
‘r2 = radial stress at top of layer 3
 Stresses in Pavements
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2.1. Stresses in Flexible Pavements (Three-Layer System )

 At the axis of symmetry, tangential and radial stresses are
identical and the shear stress is equal to 0.
 When Poisson ratio is 0.5, the strain equations become

1
 z   z   r 
E
1
r   r   z 
2E

 z   2 r
 Stresses in Pavements
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2.1. Stresses in Flexible Pavements (Three-Layer System )

 Jones has developed a series of tables from which four sets of
stress factors, ZZ1, ZZ2, ZZ1-RR1, and ZZ2-RR2, can be
obtained.
 For determining the stress factors in Jones’s Tables, the
following dimensionless parameters are defined:

E1 E2
k1  k2 
E2 E3
a h1
A H
h2 h2
 Stresses in Pavements
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2.1. Stresses in Flexible Pavements (Three-Layer System )

 The product of the stress factors and the contact pressure gives the stresses as

 z1  q ZZ1  z1   r1  q ZZ1  RR1

 z 2  q ZZ 2  z 2   r 2  q ZZ 2  RR 2
 From the continuity of horizontal displacement at the interfaces, ’r1 and ’r2
can be computed from
 z1   r 1  z2   r2
 ' r 1   z1   'r 2   z 2 
k1 k2
 Once the stresses at the interfaces are calculated, strains can be computed from
the equations of strains.
 Stresses in Pavements
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2.2. Stresses in Rigid Pavements

 The most important sources of stresses in rigid pavements

are:
 Vehicle loads,
 Changes in temperature of the slab, and
 Friction between the slab and the subgrade or base course.
 These factors tend to result in deformations of the
concrete slab, which cause tensile, compression, and
flexural stresses of varying magnitude.
 Stresses in Pavements
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2.2. Stresses in Rigid Pavements (Vehicle loads)

 Three methods can generally be used to determine the

stresses and deflections in concrete pavements due to

vehicle loading:
 Westergaard’s formulas
 Influence charts
 Finite element analysis

Reading Assignment
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