TECH ZONE ENGINEERING AND BUSINESS COLLEGE

DEPARTMENT OF CONSTRUCTION TECHNOLOGY AND

MANAGEMENT

ROAD AND BRIDGE

CONSTRUCTION II
CTMG 4121

Chapter one
Introduction

Tamru T.
2013 ec (2021/20 2nd Sem 1
 Introduction
 General
 The field of pavement design is dynamic & the concepts are
changing with time as technology develops and new
equipment emerges for site investigation, material testing
and traffic data collection, and new data become available.
 In the early stage, pavement design was carried out by a rule-
of-thumb procedure based entirely on past experience.
 Through the observation of performances of the already
constructed roads, highway engineers became aware that
pavement performance is dependent on the subgrade soils.

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 Introduction cont....
 Overview of Pavement Structures
 A pavement is a layered structure that:
 have sufficient total thickness and internal strength to carry
expected traffic loads, and distribute them over the
subgrade soil without overstressing;
 have adequate properties to prevent or minimize the
penetration or internal accumulation of moisture; and
 have a surface that is reasonably smooth and skid resistant
at the same time, as well as, reasonably resistant to wear,
distortion and deterioration by vehicle loads and weather.

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Introduction cont....
Types of pavements:
 Earth Roads
 Gravel Surfaced Roads
 Flexible Pavements
 Rigid Pavements

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 Gravel Surfaced Roads

Earth Roads

Flexible Pavements Rigid Pavements

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Introduction cont....
 Flexible Pavement
 A flexible pavement is one, which has low flexural strength,
and the load is largely transmitted to the subgrade soil through
the lateral distribution of stresses with increasing depth.

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Flexible Pavement (Cont’d)
 Types of flexible pavement constructions
 Conventional flexible pavement,
 Full-depth asphalt pavement, and
 Contained rock asphalt mat (CRAM) construction (which
is still in the experimental stage and has not been widely
accepted for practical use).

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Flexible Pavement (Cont’d)
 Conventional flexible pavements
 Are multilayered structures with better materials on top
where the intensity of stress is high and inferior materials at
the bottom where the intensity is low.
 This design principle makes possible to use local materials
and usually results in a most economical design.
 This is particularly true in regions where high-quality
materials are expensive but local materials of inferior quality
are readily available.

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Flexible Pavement (Cont’d)
 Starting from the top, a conventional flexible pavement
normally consists of
• Surface course,
• Base course,
• Subbase course,
• Compacted subgrade,
• Natural subgrade.

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Flexible Pavement (Cont’d)
 Full-depth asphalt pavements

 Are constructed by placing one or more layers of hot-mix

asphalt directly on the subgrade or improved subgrade.
 This concept was conceived by the Asphalt Institute and is
generally considered the most cost-effective and
dependable type of asphalt pavement for heavy traffic and
quite popular in areas where local materials are not
available.

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Introduction cont...
 Comparison of Rigid and Flexible Pavements
 The manner in which vehicle loads are transmitted to the
subgrade soil,
 Design precision,
 Design life,
 Maintenance requirements,
 Initial cost,
 Suitability for stage construction,
 Surface characteristics,
 Permeability, and
 Traffic dislocation during construction.

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 Introduction cont...
 Highway and Airport Pavements
 The gross-weight of an airplane is usually greater than that of
a heavy truck, but the number of load repetitions on airport
pavements is usually smaller than that on highway
pavements.
 The arrangement and spacing of wheel loads on airport and
highway pavements are different.
 A typical tyre pressure on highway pavements is in the
vicinity of 0.5 MPa while aircrafts use a tyre pressure up to 3
MPa which is an important factor in the design of the
materials in the upper layer of the pavements.

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Highway and Airport Pavements (cont’d)
 Vehicle loads are applied near to the edge of highway
pavements but far away from the outside edge of airport
pavements.
 Unlike highway pavements, airfield pavements are subjected to
an impact loading.
 The design load of airport pavements is the wheel load of the
largest aircraft during takeoff time due to heavy fuel weight.
 Although wheel loads can be used as design loads, number of
repetitions of standard axles is the commonly used design
parameter for highway pavements.

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Introduction cont...
 Basic Design Factors
 Traffic Loading:
• Loading configuration;
• Number of repetitions;
• Tyre pressure; and
• Speed of traffic loading

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Basic Design Factors (Cont’d)
 Environment:
• Temperature,
o Flexible pavement – elastic/viscoelastic properties of
bituminous materials
o Rigid pavement – warping/curling stresses
o Frost in the subgrade - heave and stronger subgrade in
the winter but a much weaker subgrade in the spring
• Precipitation
o Water requirement during construction;
o Strength of pavement structure; and
o Surface water drainage.

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Basic Design Factors (Cont’d)
 Materials:

• Properties of soils, aggregates, bituminous binders, cement,

and their mixtures under traffic loading in a given
environmental conditions is fundamental for designing a
sound pavement structure

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Basic Design Factors (Cont’d)
Performance and Failure Criteria:

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Basic Design Factors (Cont’d)
 Performance and Failure Criteria:
• Gravel roads – defects include: dustiness, potholes, stoniness,
corrugations, ruts, cracks, ravelling, erosion, slipperiness,
impassibility and loss of wearing course material – function
of properties of materials of construction, alignment, volume
of traffic, and etc.
• Flexible pavement – fatigue cracking ; rutting; and thermal
cracking
• Rigid pavement - fatigue cracking; pumping ; and joint
deterioration 20
Failures Pictures

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