PAVEMENT

DESIGN AND
CONSTRUCTION

Pavement Design
Effective pavement design is one of the more
important aspects of project design. The pavement is
the portion of the highway which is most obvious to
the motorist. The condition and adequacy of the
highway is often judged by the smoothness or
roughness of the pavement. Deficient pavement
conditions can result in increased user costs and
travel delays, braking and fuel consumption, vehicle
maintenance repairs and probability of increased
crashes.

What is Pavement?
Road surface or pavement is the
durable surface material laid
down on an area intended to
sustain vehicular or foot traffic,
such as a road or walkway.
In the past, gravel road surfaces, cobblestone and
granite setts were extensively used, but these
surfaces have mostly been replaced by asphalt or
concrete laid on a compacted base course.

 The road pavement is the actual surface on which

the vehicles will travel
Its purpose is twofold, to provide friction for the
vehicles and to transfer normal stresses to the
underlying soils.

The pavement life is substantially affected by the number of

heavy load repetitions applied, such as single, tandem, tridem
and quad axle trucks, buses, tractor trailers and equipment. A
properly designed pavement structure will take into account the
applied loading.

Pavement Types,
Definitions, and
Abbreviations

Pavement Types &

Definitions
There are four types of pavement currently in use in the United
Kingdom at present:
Flexible - Pavements with a bitumen bonded surfacing and
roadbase.
Flexible Composite - The surfacing and upper road base are
bituminous on a lower roadbase of cement bound material.
Rigid - Pavements with a concrete surface slab which can be unreinforced, joint reinforced or continuously reinforced.
Rigid Composite - Continuously reinforced concrete slab with a
bituminous overlay.
*Both Flexible Composite and Rigid Composite fall
under the
Composite Pavement Type.

Composite Pavement:
These are pavements comprised of both rigid and flexible
layers. Currently, for purposes of the procedures in the HDM,
only flexible over rigid composite pavements are considered
composite pavements.
HDM - Highway Development and Maintenance

Abbreviations

HMA

Hot Mix Asphalt

PCC

Portland Cement Concrete

CRCP

Continuously Reinforced Concrete Pavement

JRCP

Jointed Reinforced Concrete Pavement

JPCP

Jointed Plain Concrete Pavement

*PCP

Precast/Prestressed Concrete Pavement