Principles of Pavement Engineering

Chapter 1 Introduction

The motor vehicle transport is a key factor in the economy and thus the choice of materials is limited to
those that can be easily and cheaply produced in large quantities. Stone Age materials have always
predominated and will continue to do that as the cost is always the driving force. Any additive that gives
extra quality such as bitumen or cement has to be used sparingly otherwise society won’t be able to
afford it.

The two fundamental areas in which soil behaviour affects pavement performance are:

- Stiffness under transient load

- Resistance to accumulation of deformation under repeated load

Now the focus is towards maximising the value of reused materials so as to make an optimum use of
the resources.

Chapter 2 Pavement applications

Following can be concluded from this chapter:

- For high-speed highways, design requirements are: good ride quality, safe, skid-resistant
surface, quiet surface and low maintenance
- Urban roads have relatively low traffic speed so the surface quality need not be of the
highest standard, but the disruption caused by digging up sections of road is a significant
issue. Its design requirements are: maintenance-friendly construction, high skid resistant
surfaces in places, high rut resistance in places and low maintenance
- The design requirements for estate roads are: cheap construction, should remain passable
for many decades and must accommodate occasional heavy traffic
- Rural roads have following design requirements: adequate ride quality and granular
pavements with or without surface dressing can be used. Also, suitably high skid
resistance: Adequate texture depth should be provided
- For car, coach and lorry parks, design requirements are: sufficient load-bearing capacity
and to maintain an acceptable surface finish
- The design requirements for airfield pavements are: limit deformation, ensure adequate
skid resistance, avoid future closures, resist fuel/oil spillage and avoid foreign object
damage (FOD)

Chapter 3 Construction issues

Unbound materials

For unbound materials, the subgrade soil should be protected from the effects of weather and
construction traffic by leaving a thin layer of overlying material until the very last moment. Particle
properties and size distribution play a major role in determining the strength of the material as a whole.
Materials become very difficult to work if stones larger than about 30% of the layer thickness are
present.

For achieving a high-quality granular layer:

- Mix material at optimum water content

- Compact at optimum water content
- Allow to dry out as drainage and evaporation take place, maximising suction

The method of placement depends on the degree of level control required. However, the stress level
applied is important, and this places a limit on the thickness of layer that can be effectively compacted
by any given equipment.

Hydraulically bound materials

In case of hydraulically-bound materials, shape and size distribution are less critical than in the case
for unbound material. The denser the mix the higher its resulting strength will be, and strength is the
property that really matters.

The primary issue is to ensure a right amount of water for the hydraulic reaction to take place.
Secondary issue is the water necessary for compaction. The trick is to ensure that the two optima (one
for hydraulic reaction, the other for compaction) are similar, which places limits on the binder content
that can be used with a given aggregate type and gradation.

Hydraulically bound materials require careful proportioning and mixing. Roller compaction is used for
dry concrete whereas in wet concrete, concrete is laid in bays between strips of formwork. For really
high productivity, slip forming technique is used.

Wherever there is a tendency for significant expansion, contraction or warping, the brittle nature of
concrete dictates the use of joints. As the pavement will crack anyway, the trick is to persuade it to
crack where the designer wants it to. Dowel bars are provided in case of expansion and contraction
joints and tie bars in case of warping joints. The joints are sealed by the application of a sealant.

Asphalt

Asphalt is produced when hot binder is mixed with aggregate in a water-free environment and is highly
energy intensive process. The process may be warm mix or cold mix. There are tight limits on particle
size distribution to ensure good interlock between stones but the shape of the particles is also important
as the angular particles give greater resistance to deformation.

Following conditions must be met:

- Trucks for transport of hot-mix asphalt have to be well insulated and covered
- The journey must not be too long, or cooling, segregation or, in the case of cold-mix,
premature setting may result
- In some cases cellulose fibres have to be added to the mixture to prevent ‘binder drainage’

Asphalt pavement performance relies on the bond between individual asphalt layers otherwise the
upper layers can detach, crack and eventually give rise to potholes. Special care is needed where
reinforcing products (geogrids, geotextiles) are used in asphalt because if not fixed properly, it will result
in formation of voids. The various asphalt surface options are bituminous macadam, grooved surface,
rolled-in chippings and surface dressing. Their selection depends on the usage.

Chapter 4 Basic engineering concepts

Every object has a mass, measured in kilograms (or tonnes). The weight of an object refers specifically
to the downward effect of a mass due to the action of the earth’s gravity. It is measured in newtons (N).
The density of a material is the mass per unit volume (kg/m3). Stress and pressure, both are defined
as force divided by area, giving units of N/m2 although stress is most commonly used when dealing
with solids, whereas pressure usually relates to liquids and gases. Strain is often the consequence of
stress and describes the degree to which a material deforms.

Stiffness refers to a ratio of load to deformation. Elastic modulus is the ratio of applied stress to induced
strain but it assumes the behaviour of the material to be linear. Although stiffness modulus is still stress
divided by strain but asphalt uses this term as it has a viscous component to its behaviour. The term
resilient modulus is reserved for soils and other unbound materials and is used to separate out the
component of behaviour that is approximately elastic from the plastic component.

Poisson’s ratio controls the degree to which a material compresses under load. In an incompressible
material, it has a value of 0.5 and as the level of compressibility decreases, the value of Poisson’s ratio
also decreases.

Modulus of subgrade reaction is defined as the ratio of an applied vertical stress (at top of subgrade
level) to the resulting vertical deflection. It can be measured directly by means of a plate loading test.
Viscosity is defined as the ratio of an applied stress to the resulting strain rate. It parallels the concept
of elastic stiffness in a solid. Kinematic viscosity is defined as viscosity divided by the density.

Coefficient of thermal expansion is defined as the proportional change in a given linear dimension due
to a one degree Celsius rise in temperature. Use of limestone aggregate minimises thermal expansion
and use of gravel aggregate usually maximises it. Thermal conductivity describes the flow of energy
caused by 1 K temperature difference across a 1 m length of material. Specific heat capacity describes
how much energy is required to heat up a given mass of material by 1K.

Chapter 6 Unbound material

The key points to take away from this chapter are:

- Unbound materials cannot withstand tension but they can withstand shear. Deformation in
an unbound layer of a pavement is always associated with failure along shear planes.
- The various parameters are: particle shape and angularity, particle size, particle size
distribution, particle packing and water content
- The principal laboratory test is the triaxial test. For in situ determination of shear strength,
the shear vane test can be used in clays up to a certain strength. The problem with CBR is
that the loaded area is very small and many pavement foundation layers have particles
large enough to induce serious error in such a test. The quantity that results directly from
a plate loading test is the ‘modulus of subgrade reaction’.
- As the pavements are subjected to large numbers of repeated loads, the first load
application is of limited interest; it is the shape of the almost repeatable stress-strain
characteristic that determines the stiffness of the material.
- K-Mould, Springbox and PUMA are suited to the development of stiffness for pavement
design purposes and have following features:
 The stress conditions are less well controlled than those in the triaxial test but they
generate a stiffness modulus much more compatible with those measured in situ
beneath a finished pavement.
 The tests are easier to set up and carry out than the triaxial tests.

Chapter 7 Hydraulically- bound material

Key points:

- There is always a strength gain process, which may be one of hours in the case of rapid-
set concretes, weeks in case of conventional concretes, or months in case of slow setting
hydraulically-bound mixtures. The environmental and loading conditions during the ‘curing’
process are critical to the eventual performance of the material.
- Appropriate water content is essential to achieve design strength, and is also constrained
by the needs of material compaction.
- As hydraulically-bound mixtures are, for practical purposes, elastic solids, they are
susceptible to stress generated by restrained thermal expansion or contraction.
- The general mode of failure for all hydraulically-bound materials is tensile, occurring when
the tensile stress (or strain) limit is exceeded.
- However, failure can occur under multi-cyclic loading at stresses much lower than the
tensile limit, due to phenomenon known as fatigue.
- Slow-setting mixtures, particularly those mixed in situ, present additional problems in
ensuring a product of suitable quality.

Chapter 8 Asphalt

The key points to consider are:

- Bitumen is a visco-elastic liquid, even at in-service temperatures. It can ‘flow’, and

permanent deformation of asphalt can occur therefore.
- The viscosity and elastic stiffness of bitumen are temperature and loading rate dependent,
which means this is also true for an asphalt mixture.
 - Asphalt ‘works’ by forming a skeleton of interlocking aggregate particles. Interparticle
movement is restricted by the bitumen surrounding each particle contact. Performance
therefore depends on the effectiveness of the aggregate skeleton, the properties of the
bitumen, and the strength of bitumen-aggregate adhesion.
- In every mixture, there is a critical particle size, above which the particles form the skeleton
and below which they act as binder extenders. In practice, this means that filler should be
seen as a binder additive, increasing both the stiffness and the fracture resistance.
- Mixture involves firstly the selection of an appropriate aggregate gradation for the material’s
role in the pavement, then the choice of an appropriate binder grade and content. This
should give optimum density and stiffness, as well as ensuring there is enough binder for
fatigue and durability purposes, and enough air voids to avoid ‘pore pressure’ and
permanent deformation.
- Cold mixes can never be exactly equivalent to dense hot mixes because of the presence
of a significant volume of water during compaction. Designs must ensure that the water is
able to evaporate and escape at an early age.

Chapter 11 Approaches to design

The long term characteristics of a pavement have to be borne in mind as much as the day-one
performance while designing the pavement. This chapter has highlighted both the economic context
and the issues of sustainability. These are not the issues with which an engineer will usually be directly
concerned, however, a pavement engineer should be able to appreciate the true life-cycle costs, both
economic and environmental in his designs.

Chapter 12 Traffic loading

The nature of the traffic using a pavement is the primary design input. Because of the very different
nature of the loads experienced by different pavement types (airfields, highways, ports, footways, car
parks, etc.), it is not possible to give absolute general rules for the prediction of traffic. The goal is to
determine: (1) a design load case; and (2) a number of load applications. However, the expression of
traffic in this way is approximate and the predictions are fraught with uncertainty and thus, a practical
approach is required. Although, even a significant error in the prediction of traffic usually has only minor
influence on pavement design thickness. Selection of an appropriate load case is, however, much more
critical.

Chapter 13 Design against rutting

It should be taken care that the stress level, specifically the shear stress level, at any point in the
pavement is never sufficient to cause excessively rapid straining. This means:

- The subgrade must be adequately protected by overlying pavement layers

- Any granular materials placed above the subgrade must themselves be protected by
overlying bound materials.
- Asphalt mix design must give a significantly deformation-resistant mixture in order to avoid
rutting within the asphalt

The total rut, of course, is the sum of components from the different layers. The overall design has to
be such that the cumulative rut during the design life is not excessive.

Chapter 14 Design against cracking-concrete pavements

Design against cracking of concrete pavements depend on limiting the stress in the concrete. In the
case of combined warping and traffic stresses, the limit may be relatively close to the tensile strength
of the material because relatively few worst-case load applications are expected; in the case of general
traffic-induced cracking, the large number of load applications implies a much reduced stress limit. The
key points are:

- A realistic measure of tensile (or flexural) strength is required, and this will depend on the
age of the material.
 - It is important to consider to what extent the concrete layer can be considered as
continuous, or whether the calculated stress should either be adjusted to account for the
presence of joints, or else a separate calculation carried out for the edge or corner loading
cases.
- Improved life can be obtained by altering the design to reduce the value of the critical stress
or strain in the pavement. Reduced joint spacing and/or improved load transfer give
significant benefit.
- Reinforcement can be used for crack control and, when used in sufficient quantity, can
overcome the need for joints entirely.

Chapter 15 Design against cracking- asphalt pavements

Design against asphalt cracking depends on limiting the stress or strain in the asphalt layer to an
acceptable value. In the case of thermally-induced cracking, the limit is likely to be close to the tensile
strength of the material, because relatively few load applications are expected. In the case of traffic-
induced cracking, the large number of load applications implies a much reduced stress or strain limit.
The key points to bear in mind while designing against cracking are as follows:

- For thermally-induced cracking of asphalt, the low temperature strength is needed

- For traffic-induced cracking of asphalt, a tensile strain must be calculated, most commonly
by means of a multi-layer linear elastic analysis program, and used in conjunction with a
fatigue characteristic or a crack propagation law.
- Improved life can be obtained by improving the crack-resisting properties of the materials
concerned, including by means of reinforcement
- Improved life can also be obtained by altering the design to reduce the value of the critical
stress or strain in the pavement. For all designs against traffic-induced cracking, foundation
stiffness has a large influence.

Chapter 16 Design against cracking- composite pavements

Design of composite pavements depends critically on having a correct understanding of the nature and
likely long-term condition of the hydraulically-bound base, which depends on a proper analysis of the
stresses likely within the material. If the base can be considered as a continuous material, giving
continuous support to the overlying asphalt, then asphalt layer design can proceed as if for a fully flexible
asphalt pavement; if not, then the issue of reflective cracking cannot be avoided.

On its own, a crack does not interfere with pavement usage at all, and this is particularly relevant in the
case of reflective cracking in composite pavements. If such cracks are relatively few in number, a
pragmatic decision could be taken to ignore reflective cracking and to treat it as a maintenance issue.
It becomes a real problem only when it deteriorates and leads to more general break-up of the
pavement.

Chapter 17 Design for durability

Durability design is very largely concerned with problems caused by water, either as a liquid or in its
solid form as ice. Basically, if water contents can be maintained at a low level, there are unlikely to be
any pavement durability issues. The design will still have a finite life before cracking or rutting becomes
excessive, but at least there should be no reduction in material properties during that lifetime. The
economic importance of drainage should, therefore, never be underestimated.

Unfortunately, drainage is frequently neglected. The argument is sometimes heard that bases and sub-
bases can never dry out because suction will always ensure that water is retained, and the value of
drainage is therefore questioned. However, there is a massive difference between the performance of
a material that is merely ‘wet’ and that of a saturated layer. A functioning drain can never remove water
completely, but it will lower the water content until a balance is achieved between suction effects and
those of gravity.