HI 362: INFRASTRUCTURE DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION

2021/2
LECTURE 3: PAVEMENT DESIGN

• Introduction

• Types of pavement

• Pavement design factors

• Design of flexible pavement

• Design of gravel pavement

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INTRODUCTION

What is a pavement ?

Pavement is a structure
consisting durable top
layers/surfaces of the
road.

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INTRODUCTION

What is a pavement ?

• A highway pavement consists of superimposed layer of

processed materials above the natural soil sub-grade, whose
primary function is to distribute the applied vehicles loads to
the sub-grade

• The pavement structure should be able to provide a surface

of
 acceptable riding quality,
 adequate skidding resistance,
 favorable light reflecting characteristics and
 low noise pollution
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INTRODUCTION
Requirement of a pavement
• An ideal pavement should meet the following requirements:
 Sufficient thickness to distribute the wheel load stresses to
a safe value on a sub-grade soil
 Structurally strong to withstand all types of stresses
imposed upon it
 Adequate coefficient of friction to prevent the skidding of
vehicles
 Smooth surface to provide comfort to road users even at
high speed.
 Produce least noise from the moving vehicles
 Long design life with low maintenance cost
 Impervious surface, so that sub-grade soil is well protected
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INTRODUCTION
Pavement layers

Eg. Flexible pavement

Asphalt concrete
Base course Pavement
layers
Subbase

Subgrade
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INTRODUCTION
Pavement layers
• Asphalt concrete: Mixture of mineral aggregates and
asphaltic materials. Thickness is 3’’ – 6’’ depending
on the expected traffic on pavement
• Base course: Granular material such as crushed stone
or gravel, and sand
• Subbase: Located immediately above the subgrade.
Material of a superior quality than the subgrade. If
necessary, it may be stabilized
• Subgrade: Natural material serves as the foundation
of the pavement structure. May be a layer of selected
borrowed materials, well compacted. 6
INTRODUCTION
Pavement layers
• Strength of a pavement layer is
measured using the California
Bearing Ratio (CBR)
• CBR is a penetration test for
evaluation of strength of subgrade,
subbase and base course of
pavement
• CBR test described in BS 1377 : Soils
for civil engineering purposes : Part
4, Compaction related tests, and in
𝑃𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑢𝑟𝑒 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑠𝑖𝑡𝑒 𝑠𝑜𝑖𝑙
Part 9: In-situ tests  
𝐶𝐵𝑅=
𝑃𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑢𝑟𝑒 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑎𝑙 𝑝𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑜𝑛 𝑆𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑑𝑎𝑟𝑑 𝑆𝑜𝑖𝑙
• It was developed by the California
Department of Transportation, USA
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TYPES OF PAVEMENT
• Based on the structural performance, a pavement
can be classified as:
 Flexible pavement
 Rigid pavement
 Semi-rigid pavement
 Gravel pavement

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TYPES OF PAVEMENT
Flexible Pavement
• Is a pavement in which a surface treatment or a
bituminous mix is placed over a base course made
of granular materials/bituminous mixes

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TYPES OF PAVEMENT
Flexible Pavement
• In flexible pavement
wheel load are
transferred by grain to
grain contact of the
aggregate through the
granular structure.

• Strength to the pavement layers decrease with increase

in depth from the surface
• Loading stress decreases with depth
• Commonly used in TZ 10
TYPES OF PAVEMENT
Rigid Pavement
• Is a pavement made of concrete, where most of
the traffic is carried by the concrete slab and less
by the foundation

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TYPES OF PAVEMENT
Rigid Pavement
• In rigid pavements, wheel
loads are transferred to
sub-grade soil by flexural
strength of the pavement
• Pavement acts like a rigid
plate e.g (cement
concrete roads)

• Strength to the pavement layers decrease with

increase in depth from the surface
• Loading stress decreases with depth 12
TYPES OF PAVEMENT
Rigid Pavement
• Due to large construction cost, rigid pavements are
limited to heavily trafficked and urban roads

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TYPES OF PAVEMENT
Semi-rigid Pavement
• Is a pavement that utilises cemented materials in
the base course layer or both basecourse and
subbase layers
• Semi-rigid pavement is preferred in high traffic
conditions
• In semi-rigid pavement, most of the traffic stresses
are absorbed by the cemented layers

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TYPES OF PAVEMENT
Gravel Pavement
• Is a low-type surfaces because of serving low traffic
volumes, i.e., < 300 Annual average daily traffic
• Cross fall of carriageway and shoulders ranges from 4% – 6%

Gravel wearing course

Improved Subgrade

• Thickness of a gravel layer depends on:

 Traffic volume
 Quality of gravel available
 Existing soil or subgrade
 Location of the road
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TYPES OF PAVEMENT
Gravel Pavement
• Gravel pavement should be less dust in dry
weather and less slippery in wet weather
• Gravel pavement should not easily be eroded
• Structurally, a gravel pavement function as a
flexible pavement

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PAVEMENT DESIGN FACTORS
Factors affecting the design of pavements :
i) Traffic and loading
 Number of repetitions, axle load, contact area and

vehicle speed
Types of traffic
─ Normal traffic - traffic that will use the route
regardless of the condition of the road
─ Diverted traffic - traffic that moves from an
alternative route due to the improvement of the
road, but at otherwise unchanged origin and
destination
─ Generated traffic - additional traffic occurring due to
the improvement of the road 17
PAVEMENT DESIGN FACTORS

ii) Failure criteria

 Flexible pavement (fatigue, rutting/permanent
deformation, thermal cracking)
 Rigid pavement (fatigue, pumping/erosion)

iii) Material Characterization

 Strength and availability of construction materials

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PAVEMENT DESIGN FACTORS
iv) Environmental factors
• For the purpose of road design, Tanzania can be divided
into three climatic zones
 Dry zone
 Moderate zone
 Wet zone

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PAVEMENT DESIGN FACTORS
iv) Environmental factors

• Climatic zone demarcated based on the number of

months in a year with surplus of rainfall over

precipitation

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DESIGN OF FLEXIBLE PAVEMENT
• In design of flexible pavement,
From
Pavement = f (Base course, Climate, TLC) Charts

• Traffic load class (TLC) depend on:

1. Vehicle category
2. Traffic count
3. Vehicle equivalent factor
4. Equivalent standard axle
5. Heavy traffic proportion
6. Traffic distribution
7. Traffic projection
8. Lane traffic
9. Traffic load class 21
DESIGN OF FLEXIBLE PAVEMENT
1. Vehicle category

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DESIGN OF FLEXIBLE PAVEMENT
2. Traffic Count
(a) Counted Vehicles
• Only heavy vehicles are counted for pavement design
• Heavy vehicles- un-laden (unloaded) weight of ≥ 3 tones

• Standard traffic count-Annual Average Daily Traffic (AADT):

survey of 1 year duration over 24 hrs covering all lanes
• Minimum traffic count-Average Daily Traffic (ADT): one survey
of 7 days duration over 24 hrs covering all lanes
𝐶𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑡
  =𝐶𝑜𝑚𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛× 𝑇𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑡 23
DESIGN OF FLEXIBLE PAVEMENT
2. Traffic Count
(b) Axle load survey
• Measurements shall include minimum one survey of 7 days
duration over 24 hours covering each lane.
• Minimum information from the axle load survey shall include:
o Axle load of heavy vehicles (empty or loaded)

o Vehicle category

• Each axle in a multi axle combination ( e.g., bogie, triple etc.)

shall be measured separately.
• Survey point shall be equipped with sufficient capacity to
weigh all heavy vehicles that are passing in one direction at a
time both sides
 
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DESIGN OF FLEXIBLE PAVEMENT
2. Traffic Count
(b) Axle load survey
 

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DESIGN OF FLEXIBLE PAVEMENT
 3.
Vehicle equivalent factor
• The damaging effect of an axle passing over the pavement is
expressed by an equivalent factor related to standard axles of
8160 Kg load (E80)

• Vehicle equivalent factor is the sum of all axles of the vehicle

 

• for heavy axles (>13tones) : for checking heavy traffic.

𝑉
  𝐸 𝐹¿ 13𝑡𝑛
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DESIGN OF FLEXIBLE PAVEMENT
 4. Equivalent standard axle
• Equivalent standard axles of 8160 Kg load of a vehicle per day
(E80/day)

• Equivalent factor of the all traffics is the sum of factors of all

types of vehicle composing to the traffic

• for heavy axles (> 13 tones) is required for checking heavy

traffic.
• Equivalent factor of the all heavy axles is the sum of factors of
all types of vehicle composing to heavy axles

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 DESIGN OF FLEXIBLE PAVEMENT
 5. Heavy traffic proportion

• Checking if the traffic is heavy . If the proportion is 50% or higher

then the design traffic loading is defined as heavy denoted by an
index to the traffic load class as input to the pavement design
catalogue.

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DESIGN OF FLEXIBLE PAVEMENT
 6.
Traffic distribution
• Assign the distribution of the total traffic on directions i.e.,
40/60% or 50/50%

• The heaviest direction is usually considered for design

• The extent of heavy loaded direction can also be applied at this

stage (e.g., x 90%) to reduce the percentage/ traffic of traffic
which is not heavy in the direction.

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DESIGN OF FLEXIBLE PAVEMENT
 7.
Traffic projection
• Traffic growth rate: growth rate for each heavy vehicle category,

Where,
h is the growth rate in traffic volume for the heavy vehicle
category
v is the growth rate in vehicle equivalency factor (E80 per
vehicle ) for the heavy vehicle category
• Projection of growth of traffic in a particular loaded lane,

Where, n is the design period and i is the traffic growth rate

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DESIGN OF FLEXIBLE PAVEMENT
 8.
Lane traffic
• Lane traffic E80 growth,

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DESIGN OF FLEXIBLE PAVEMENT
9. Traffic load class
• The traffic load class (TLC) is used to summarize the design
traffic loading.

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DESIGN OF FLEXIBLE PAVEMENT

Design charts:
Granular +
Dry/Moderate

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DESIGN OF FLEXIBLE PAVEMENT

Design charts:
Granular + Wet

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DESIGN OF FLEXIBLE PAVEMENT

Design charts:
Cemented + All

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DESIGN OF FLEXIBLE PAVEMENT

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DESIGN OF FLEXIBLE PAVEMENT

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EXAMPLE 1

4%.

Solution: ?
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EXAMPLE 1 (cont’d)

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EXAMPLE 1 (cont’d)

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EXAMPLE 1 (cont’d)

9. Traffic load class

• 10 < 11.09 < 20 mil E80
• Thus, TLC 20-H

Pavement layers (PL)

PL = f (Base course, Climate, TLC)
PL = f (Granular, Moderate climate, TLC 20-H)

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DESIGN OF GRAVEL PAVEMENT

• Top layer of gravel pavement is Gravel Wearing (GW)

course
• In design of gravel pavement,

From
Pavement = f (Subgrade, Climate, Traffic count) Charts

• Traffic count depends on:

1. Vehicle category
2. Traffic composition
3. Heavy traffic proportion
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DESIGN OF GRAVEL PAVEMENT
1. Vehicle category

• Distinguish between heavy vehicles from other

vehicles
• A bus with seating capacity ≥ 40 passenger
• An unladen vehicle with weight ≥ 3 tones
2. Traffic composition

• Standard traffic count-Annual Average Daily Traffic (AADT):

survey of 1 year duration over 24 hrs covering all lanes
• Minimum traffic count-Average Daily Traffic (ADT): one survey
of 7 days duration over 24 hrs covering all lanes
𝐶𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑡
 𝐶𝑜𝑚𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛=
𝑇𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑡
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DESIGN OF GRAVEL PAVEMENT
3. Heavy traffic proportion
• Check if the proportion of heavy traffic is less than
50%
Heavy traffic < 50%

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DESIGN OF GRAVEL PAVEMENT

Design charts: Major Gravel Roads

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DESIGN OF GRAVEL PAVEMENT

Design charts: Minor Gravel Roads (AADT < 50)

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EXAMPLE 2

Traffic volume on Tegeta A road in Dar es Salaam indicates that

AADT is 290 with the following vehicle mix. Design the
pavement if the subgrade class is S3.

Solution: ?
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EXAMPLE 2 (cont’d)

Car

Truck

Bus
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EXAMPLE 2 (cont’d)

Pavement layers (PL)

PL
PL

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REFERENCES

• Road Act 2007 - Tanzania

• Road Management Regulations 2009 - Tanzania
• Pavement and Materials Design Manual 2009 – Tanzania

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End of Lecture 3

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