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Flexible Pavement vs. Rigid Pavement
Flexible Pavement vs. Rigid Pavement
Prof. Satish Chandra, Ph. D. Director, CSIR-Central Road Research Institute, Delhi
Two types of pavements are laid in India-rigid pavement and flexible pavement. In simple terms, a flexible
pavement can be defined as a pavement layer comprising of a mixture of aggregates and bitumen, heated and
mixed properly and then laid and compacted on a bed of granular layer. Rigid pavements on the other hand, are
made from cement concrete or reinforced concrete slabs, laid over a low strength concrete layer (Dry lean
concrete, DLC) or on a well compacted layer of aggregates or both.
Flexible Pavements
Design Strategy
The design of pavement varies with soil conditions and the amount of traffic expected to be carried during its
design life. Flexible pavements in India are designed based on California bearing ratio (CBR) of subgrade soil
and expected number of cumulated axles (measured in million standard axles, msa) during the design life of the
pavement. These pavements are designed for a period of 15 years. The method of design allows use of
conventional as well as stabilized materials in any layer of the pavement, and thickness of each layer is taken
from the templates given in Indian Roads Congress (IRC) design code.
Rigid pavements are designed for a period of 30-40 years and thickness design of rigid pavements are
influenced by traffic loading, subgrade soil, moisture, and temperature differential. First, the thickness of rigid
pavements is designed for fatigue failure. The computed thicknesses of the pavements are then checked for the
critical combination of load stresses and temperature stresses.
Comparison
Flexible pavements and rigid pavements can be compared on different parameters. Here only two parameters
are considered: cost of construction and carbon footprints.
A typical section of two-lane road with 7.0 m carriageway and 1.5 m wide shoulders on either side is considered.
A length of one kilometer is considered for computation of the cost. Two types of pavements were designed for
different types of soil subgrade (CBR ranging from 2 percent to 10 percent) and design traffic (1 msa to 150
msa), and the cost of each layer is computed using Dehradun PWD schedule of rates. Therefore, a total of 90
pavements were designed and the costs of construction and maintenance were computed. The above ranges of
soil and traffic values are assumed to cover almost all possible combinations of soil CBR and traffic loadings.
Table 1 gives the costs of flexible pavements in million Rupees designed for different combinations of soil CBR
and traffic conditions. Equation 1 shows the relation between the cost of flexible pavements and the soil CBR
and traffic loading.
The cost of Rigid Pavement is also computed and the total cost of construction and maintenance for different soil
and traffic conditions is shown in Table 2. Eq. 2 relates cost with CBR and traffic.
Cost = 8.284 + 4.719 x cbr-0.9 + 20.83 x msa0.15 -----------------------------14
R2 = 0.95
The points of equal cost on the CBR vs msa graph are plotted in Figure 1. Rigid pavements are found to be
economical in the upper portion of the graph and flexible pavements are economical in the lower portion of the
graph. Mathematically:
if msa = 12.48 + 6.05 x CBR, both pavements will have the same cost.
Comparison Based on Carbon Foot print
Another comparison between flexible and rigid pavements could be in terms of carbon foot prints spent during
construction. Road construction consumes energy in following five phases.
Let us take a case study of pavement design for soil subgrade CBR of 8 % and traffic loading of 100 msa. The
design of two pavements is shown in the chart 1.
Chart 1:
Note: WMM = Wet Mix Macadam; DBM= Dense Bituminous Macadam; BC = Bituminous Concrete; DLC = Dry Lean Concrete; PQC = Pavement Quality Concrete
The total emissions during construction of one kilometer long road with flexible pavement and rigid pavement are
given in Table 3. Author could not get data on maintenance and demolition part of the road and therefore
comparison is made based on first three operations only.
The green house gas emissions during construction of two types of pavements are shown in Chart 1. All
calculations are made for one kilometer road length with 7.0 m wide carriageway.
As may be seen, in case of rigid pavement, the embodied energy constitutes almost 96 percent of total emission
while in case of flexible pavement energy consumed during construction is also substantial. However, if emission
only during the construction is considered without considering the embodied emission of materials like cement
and steel bar, then rigid pavement has lower emission during construction process.
Concluding Remarks
Major highways constructed in the world are of bituminous surfacing. For example, 86 percent of rural highways
and 78 percent of urban roads in the U.S. are of flexible type. Most of the runways in the world have flexible
pavements, Autobahn in Germany is also with flexible pavement. However, the choice of type of a pavement is
governed by the type of traffic and soil conditions. In case of areas where soil subgrade is weak (like clay) and
drainage conditions are also difficult to maintain at desired level of performance (like in urban areas or in
situations where road passes through habitation), rigid pavement can be a good choice. But when soil subgrade
is of good quality and traffic is also not very heavy, flexible pavements can be more economical. The biggest
advantage with flexible pavement is that they can be made in stages. The economic analysis done by an expert
committee for the upcoming Nagpur – Mumbai Access controlled Expressway also indicated that if stage
construction is adopted, then flexible pavement will be much cheaper than rigid pavement
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