WELSPUN ENTERPRISES LIMITED

Version 3.0
Effective: 13-Apr-20 Venue: Board Room Date & Time: 14-Sep-2020
Rigid Pavement
 Rigid Pavement Defination:

 Rigid Pavement-
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• As the name implies, rigid pavements are rigid i.e, they do not flex much under
loading like flexible pavements.
• The rigid characteristic of the pavement are associated with rigidity or flexural
strength or slab action so the load is distributed over a wide area of subgrade soil.

 Components of rigid pavement-

• Soil Subgrade
• Granular Sub-base
• Base course
• CC/PQC pavement slab

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Flexible Rigid
 • Embankment soil-

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CBR of embankment soil placed below the 500 mm selected subgrade should be determined for
estimating the effective CBR of subgrade and its K value for design

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 Subgrade

 The strength of subgrade is expressed in terms of modulus of subgrade reaction K, which is

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defined as pressure per unit deflection of the foundation as determined by plate load test.
 K-value is determined from the pressure sustained at a deflection of 1.25mm
 K-value can also be obtain from soaked CBR value
 Relationship between K-value and CBR Value

Soaked 2 3 4 5 7 10 15 20 50 100
CBR (%)
K-value 21 28 35 42 48 55 62 69 140 220
(Mpa/m)

• A min. CBR of 8% is recommended for the 500 mm selected subgrade soil.

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 2. Stabilised Subbase-
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• Main purpose- to provide a uniform, stable and permanent support to the concrete slab laid over it.
• A sub-base of DLC having a 7-day avg. compressive strength of 7Mpa over GSB is recommended
as per IRC:SP:49
• Min. recommended thickness for major highways- 150mm
• For PQC bounded to DLC the 7 day strength of DLC should not be less than 10MPa.

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  Separation Layer
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• Separation Layer between DLC and concrete slab-
• The interface layer between the concrete slab and DLC layer can be made smooth to reduce
interlayer friction and prevent reflection cracking in pavement slab.
• A de-bonding layer of min. thickness of 125 micron is recommended in India.
• Bituminous concrete is another option

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 Factors Governing Design:
• Factors Governing design :
1. Wheel load
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2. Design Period
3. Design Traffic
4. Composition of commercial traffic
5. Axle load spectrum
6. Tire Pressure
7. Lateral placement characteristics
8. Directional distribution
9. Characteristics of subgrade and sub base
10. Climatic considerations

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 Items for Cost Reduction of a Project-Highways

1. Axle load characteristics-

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• Legal axle load limits in India are 10.2 tonnes (100KN) – Single axle, 19.0 tonnes(186 KN) tandem
and 24.0 tonnes (235KN) – tridem
• Data on axle load spectrum – to estimate the repetitions of single, tandem and tridem axle
• If spacing between axle (wheel base) >2.4m – consider single axle
• For fatigue damage analysis divide axle load groups into three -
1. Single axle (10 KN)
2. Tandem Axle (20KN)
3. Tridem Axle (30KN)

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Axle Configurations and Loads

Single Axle With Single Wheel Tandem Axle

(Legal Axle Load = 6t) (Legal Axle Load = 18t)

Single Axle With Dual Wheel

(Legal Axle Load = 10t)

Tridem Axle
(Legal Axle Load = 24t)
  Wheel load- important factor – determines the depth of the pavement required to ensure subgrade
soil is not failed.
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 Wheel Base Characteristics-

Data on spacing of axles collected during the traffic survey

If spacing between consecutive axles<4.5 m – consider in the design traffic for computing TDC.

 Design Period- 30 years

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  Tyre Pressure-
• For most of the commercial vehicles, the commonly used tyre inflation pressures range from about
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0.7MPa to 1.0MPa.
• It is found that stresses in concrete pavements having thickness of 200mm or higher are not
affected significantly by the variation of tyre pressure.
• A tyre pressure of 0.8 Mpa is adopted for design.

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 Temperature Differential:
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• Temperature differential is positive when the top surface of a pavement slab has tendency to have
a convex shape during day hours and negative with a concave shape during the night.
• The axle load stresses should be computed for fatigue analysis when the slab is in curled state
due to the temperature differential during day as well as night.
• In the absence of any local data, the maximum temperature differential values given in IRC:58-
2015 table-1 should adopted for design

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 • Critical Stress condition :
Bottom-Up Cracking (BUC)- The flexural stresses at bottom layer of the concrete slab is the
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maximum during day time when the axle load acts midway on pavement slab.

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 Top-Down Cracking (TDC)-
Placement of axle loads close to transverse joints when there is negative temperature gradient during
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night causes high flexural stresses in the top layer leading to TDC.

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 Traffic considerations-
17 • Design Lane- Lane carrying max. no. of commercial vehicles is termed as design lane.
• Design Traffic- 7 day 24 hour count
• The value of annual growth rate ‘r’ shall be taken minimum 5% as per IRC:SP:84
• The edge flexural stress caused by axle loads for bottom up cracking is maximum when the tyre
imprint of the outer wheel touches the longitudinal edge.
• 25% of total two way commercial traffic is considered as design traffic
• In case of four-lane and other multi-lane divided highways – 25% of the total traffic in the direction
of predominant traffic
• The cumulative number of commercial vehicles during the design period estimated from the
following equation:
• C= 365*A*((1+r)^n -1))/r
• In case of new highway links, where no traffic count data is available, data from roads of similar
classification may be used to predict the design traffic.

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 • Concrete Strength-
Flexural Strength of concrete is required for the purpose of design of concrete slab and this flexural
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strength is takes for 90 days

Fcr = 0.7* (fck)^0.5

• Modulus of elasticity and poisons ratio –

It varies with concrete material and strength
E = 30000MPa
µ = 0.15

• Coefficient of thermal expansion –

It depends to a great extent on the types of aggregate used in concrete.
However for design purpose a value of α = 10*10-6 ⁰c is adopted

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 • Fatigue behavior of cement concrete-
Due to repeated application of flexural stresses by the traffic load , progressive fatigue damage takes
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place in the cement concrete slab in the form of gradual development of micro cracks especially when
ration between applied flexural stress and the flexural strength of concrete is high.
This ratio is termed as stress ratio

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THANK YOU

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