Pavement Design and Highway

Engineering (CIVE416)

Dr. Zahid Sultan

sutanz@biust.ac.bw
4931825 (Off. Ext. 1825)
Course Objectives
The objectives of the pavement design process are to guide the students to select a
pavement type, and design the pavement with an approved method using all the
information needed to provide a structure that is capable of carrying traffic loads
with minimum physical deterioration, maximum safety, and maximum ride
comfort.

At the end of course student will be able to:

• Obtain an understanding of fundamentals of Pavement Design & Highway Eng.

• Apply methods for Evaluating & Analysis of Flexible Pavements
• Identify the elements of cross-section elements
• Design horizontal and vertical curves
• Demonstrate an application of methods and concepts of highway design in
highway planning process
Learning Outcome
At the conclusion of this subject, students should be able to:

Explain the fundamental principles of Pavement design;

Compute road traffic loads for the design of road pavements
using ASHTO 93 & BRDM 1982.
Design process of flexible & rigid pavements; Rehabilitation;
Evaluation of pavement performance.
Identify the elements of cross-section elements and design
horizontal and vertical curves. (circular curve element, setting out
of circular and transition curves, super-elevation)
Design vertical alignment; design and setting out (properties of
vertical curves). Coordination of horizontal and vertical curves.
Application of methods and concepts of highway design in
highway planning process and development of project;
Course Design
• This course will address the fundamental of Pavement Design and
Highway Engineering
• Course components are designed to work together
• Test and Exam focus on concepts
• Labs/Practical involve using instruments/material & analysis skills
 Tentative Course Outline
• Session One:
• Introduction to pavement design,
• Types of pavements
• Principal of Pavement Design
• Components of pavement & composition
• Flexible Pavement Design Methods
• Road Maintenance,
• Surface Drainage,
• Task: Preparation for TEST 1 (week 5)
• Lab/Practical work and report writing
 Tentative Course Outline
• Session two:
• Highway Engineering planning Process
• Horizontal Alignment
• Vertical alignment
• Horizontal curves, transition curves, and vertical curves.
Super-elevation.

Tasks:
• Task: Preparation for TEST 2 (week 10)
• Lab work and report writing
Assessment Method
Assessment Methods
Continue Assessment: 40 %
Lab/Practical/Quiz = 20%
Tests = 20%

Final Exam = 60%

E-Learning

• Accessible via: email

• Lecture material, slides, etc. are to be shared
• Select you class representative!
Introduction to Pavement Design
Types of Pavements in Botswana?
(discussion)
History of roads: Roman Road
1. Road Transportation (History)
• Modern road networks
• Creation of modern nation-states:
• National road transportation systems were formally established.
• France: Royal Roads system spanning 24,000 km.
• Great Britain: 32,000 km system.
• United States: 3 million km of roads.
• Botswana has a network of roads, of varied quality and capacity,
totaling about 31,747 Km.
• Road engineering
• Construction of reliable and low cost hard surface roads.
• Scottish engineer Macadam developed a process:
• Hard and waterproof road surfaces made by cemented crushed
stone, bound together either with water or with bitumen.
• Improved the reliability and the travel speed on roads.
WATER BOUND MACADAM ROADS (W.B.M. Roads)

WBM ROAD CONSTRUCTION PROCEDURE (JOHN MACADAM)

1. Preparation of sub-grade; 2. Preparation of sub-base; 3. Preparation of base;
4. Preparation of wearing course; 4. Preparation of shoulders
Advantages and Disadvantes of WBM?
Modern Pavement Design Process
• Types of Pavement
• Principal of Pavement Design
• Failure Criteria
• Aspects of Pavement Design
• Relative Damage Concept
• Pavement Thickness Design approaches
• Empirical Method
• Mechanistic-Empirical Method
What is pavement ?

• A structure consisting of superimposed layers of processed materials

above the natural soil subgrade, whose primary function is to
distribute the applied vehicle loads to the sub-grade.
Categories of Pavements
Depending on the importance of the pavement and loading and also the climatic
condition at a given location;

• Surfaced (Bituminous or Cement/concrete roads)

• Unsurfaced Payments (earth or gravel roads)

• Unconventional pavements (block, cell filled concrete, it can be

combination of both)
 Types of Pavements
Basically there are two types of the Pavement:
1. Flexible Pavement
A layered system pavement which has low flexural
(bending) strength

2. Rigid Pavement
It has a slab action and possess High flexural strength.

*Flexural or Bending strength: It is a material property,

defined as the stress in a material just before it yields in a
flexure test
 Other Types of Pavements
Perpetual Pavement
Perpetual pavement is a term used to describe a long-life structural
design. It uses premium hot-mix asphalt (HMA) mixtures, appropriate
construction techniques. Close attention must be paid to proper
construction techniques to avoid problems with permeability,
trapping moisture, segregation with depth, and variability of density
with depth. A perpetual pavement can last 30 years or more if
properly constructed and maintained.

Composite Pavement
A composite pavement is composed of both hot-mix asphalt (HMA)
and hydraulic cement concrete. Typically, composite pavements are
asphalt overlays on top of concrete pavements. The HMA overlay may
have been placed as the final stage of initial construction, or as part of
a rehabilitation or safety treatment. Composite pavement behavior
under traffic loading is essentially the same as rigid pavement.
FLEXIBLE PAVEMENT RIGID PAVEMENT
1. Flexible Pavement

• Flexible pavements are those which on a whole have low or

negligible flexural (bending) strength and rather flexible in their
structural action under load.
Load Transfer

Load is transferred to the

lower layer by grain to
grain distribution as
shown in the figure
Load Transfer (conti)

The wheel load acting on the

pavement will be distributed
to a wider area, and the
stress decreases
with the depth. Flexible
pavement layers reflect the
deformation of the lower
layers on to the surface layer
 Pavement Thickness Required
It is the determination of required thickness of various
pavement layers to protect given soil condition for a
given wheel load.
Given wheel load

150 Psi
Asphalt concrete thickness ?

Base Course Thickness ?

Sub base Course Thickness ? 3 Psi

Given In Situ Soil Condition

Pavement Layers
Typical layers of a
conventional flexible
pavement includes seal
coat, surface course, tack
coat, binder
course, prime coat, base
course, sub-base course,
compacted sub-grade, and
natural sub-grade.
Pavement Layers
• Seal coat is a thin surface treatment used to after
proof the surface and to provide skid resistance.

• Tack coat is a very light application of asphalt

emulsion diluted with water. And It provides bonding
between two layers of binder course.

• Prime coat is an application of low viscous cutback

bitumen to an absorbent surface like granular bases
on which binder layer is placed and provides bonding
between two layers.
Pavement Layers
• Surface course is the layer directly in contact with traffic loads and
are constructed with dense graded asphalt concrete.
• Binder course purpose is to distribute load to the base course.
Binder course requires lesser quality of mix as compared to course
above it.
• Base course provides additional load distribution and contributes to
the sub-surface drainage
• Sub-base course the primary functions are to provide structural
support, improve drainage, and reduce the intrusion of fines from the
sub-grade in the pavement structure
• Sub-grade the top soil or sub-grade is a layer of natural soil prepared
to receive the stresses from the layers above
Rigid Pavement Types
Continuously Reinforced Concrete Pavement (CRCP)
CRCP provides joint-free design. The formation of
transverse cracks at relatively close intervals is a distinctive
characteristic of CRCP. These cracks are held tightly by the
reinforcement and should be of no concern as long as the
cracks are uniformly spaced, do not spall excessively, and a
uniform non-erosive base is provided.

Concrete Pavement Contraction Design (CPCD)

CPCD uses contraction joints to control cracking and does
not use any reinforcing steel. An alternative slab design
designation used by the industry is jointed concrete
pavement (JCP). Transverse joint spacing is selected such
that temperature and moisture stresses do not produce
intermediate cracking between joints.
 JRCP

CRCP
Requirements of Ideal pavement
• Sufficient thickness to distribute the wheel load stresses to a
safe value on the sub-grade soil,
• Structurally strong to withstand all types of stresses imposed
upon it,
• Adequate coefficient of friction to prevent skidding of vehicles,
• Smooth surface to provide comfort to road users even at high
speed,
• Produce least noise from moving vehicles,
• Dust proof surface so that traffic safety is not impaired by
reducing visibility,
• Impervious surface, so that sub-grade soil is well protected, and
• Long design life with low maintenance cost.
Principal Factors for Pavement Selection
process
As per (AASHTO) 1993 pavement design guidelines, The
principal factors to consider in the Pavement Selection
process are:
Traffic
Soils characteristics
Weather
Construction considerations
Recycling opportunities
Cost comparison.
Secondary Factors
The secondary factors to consider in the Pavement
selection process are:
Performance of similar pavements in the area
Adjacent existing pavements
Conservation of materials and energy
Availability of local materials or contractor capabilities
Traffic safety
Incorporation of experimental features
Stimulation of competition
Municipal preference, participating of local government
preference.
Pavement Design Process
• Estimating the amount of traffic and the number of equivalent
standard axles that will use the road over the selected design life.

• Assessing the strength of subgrade soil over which the road is to be

built.

• Selecting the most economical combination of pavement materials

and layers thickness that will provide service over the design life of
the pavement.
 Factors Affecting Pavement Design

There are six (06) factors affecting Pavement Design

A. Design Life
The period of time for which the initially designed pavement
structure will last before any rehabilitation is needed.

The design life can be dependent on the type and level of

maintenance provided over the design life.

For Flexible Pavement it is normally ranges

(10 -40) years
 Factors Affecting Pavement Design (Contd.)

B. Reliability
It is the level of assurance that the designed pavement will serve satisfactorily
during the entire design life. As per AASHTO the recommended levels are:

Urban Rural
National Highways 85 – 99.5 80-99.9
State Highways 80-99 75-95
Major District Road 80-95 75-95
Other District Roads 50-80 50-80
Factors Affecting Pavement Design (Contd.)

C. Traffic Factors
• Wheel Load, Causes stresses and strain in the pavement
layers and subgrade, the tyre pressure
determines the area of application

• Repetition of Wheel Loads,

The cumulative load application during the
design life causes elastic and plastic deformations
Commercial vehicles Classification
Vehicle Axel Load and Damage Factor
calculation
Design Wheel Load
• Repetition of loads : Each load application causes some deformation
and the total deformation is the summation of all these.

• Although the pavement deformation due to single axle load is very

small, the cumulative effect of number of load repetition is
significant.

• Therefore, modern design is based on total number of standard axle

load (usually 80 KN single axle)
Design Wheel Load
Axle configuration - the axle configuration is important
to know the way in which the load is applied on the
pavement surface.
Truck Configuration

5 Axle Truck – 40t

2 Axle Truck – 16t

LCV

3 Axle Truck – 24t 4 Axle Semi Articulated – 34t

Vehicle Damage Factor (VDF)
VDF Continue
Relative Damage Factor (LDF)
Relative Damage Factor (LDF)Concept
LEF - Example
LEF - Example
Axel Load and Relative Damage
LEF - Examples
• Please calculate the Load Equivalence Factor of Following CV;
Truck of 7200 kg;
Truck 8160 kg;
Truck 9980 kg;
Truck 11790 kg;
Truck 13600 kg;
Truck 18140 kg;
• 1 kg = 0.0098kN and 1 kN = 101.9716005 kilogram, (18000lb = 82000kg)
• Formula: (weight of vehicle/Standard Axel)4
 Factors Affecting Pavement Design (Contd.)
D. Climatic Factors

• Temperature magnitude and its variation affects the

pavement materials.
• At high temp. bitumen looses its stability and at low temp. it
becomes very hard and stiff.
• The subgrade can show loss in strength in frequent occurrence
of freeze – thaw cycles.
• Subgrade soils and other paving materials weaken appreciably
when saturated. Even certain soils may show some volume
change.
 Factors Affecting Pavement Design
Contd.)
E. Subgrade Strength and Drainage

• Subgrade soil type and compacted density significantly

affect pavement design

• Surface and subsurface drainage of pavements and from

adjoining land also affects subgrade strength.

• AASHTO pavement design method uses drainage

coefficients, based on the quality of drainage.
Factors Affecting Pavement Design
(Contd.)
F. Material Properties
Proper design of pavement requires a thorough study of properties
of materials used in subgrade and other layers of pavement.

Generally the strength of subgrade soil and of sub-base / base

courses is determined in terms of CBR.
AASHTO uses Resilient Modulus (MR).

If Soaked CBR <10, MR (in psi) = 1500 * CBR

For Rigid pavement; the various material properties considered are:

The modulus of subgrade reaction, concrete Elastic Modulus;
Concrete Modulus of Rupture etc.
Thank YOU!