Flexible pavement design

Flexible pavement

•Low or negligible flexural strength

•Flexible in structural action under load
•Upper layers reflect deformation of lower layers
•Depends on aggregate interlock, particle friction and
cohesion for stability
Guidelines for the Design of Flexible Pavements (IRC: 37-
2001)
First published in 1970
Revised in 1984
Revised in 2001
Pavement distresses considered:
• Vertical compressive strain at the top of subgrade
• Horizontal tensile strain at the bottom of bituminous layer
• Pavement deformation within bituminous layer

Deformation within bituminous layer can be controlled by

meeting mix design requirements as per MORTH
specifications.
Thickness of granular and bituminous layers are selected
using analytical design approach.
Studying the performance of existing designs and using
analytical approach, simple design charts have been
developed.
CBR value ranges between 2 and 10 and traffic ranges
between 1msa and 150msa.
Average annual pavement temperature is 35 degree C

Standard axle: 8160kg

Cumulative SA to be carried depends on:
 Initial traffic after construction in terms of number of
commercial vehicles per day (CVPD)
 Traffic growth rate during design life in percent
 Design life in years
 Vehicle damage factors (VDF)
 Distribution of commercial traffic over carriageway

 For structural design only the vehicles having gross weight

of three tonnes or more and their axle loads are
considered.
 Initial daily traffic flow should normally be based on at least
7 days, 24 hour classified traffic counts
Traffic Growth Rate is estimated:
 Past trend of growth
 Develop econometric model as per IRC:108
In case adequate data is not available, average growth rate
of 7.5% may be adopted
Design Life
 For NH and SH: 15 years
 Expressway and urban roads: 20 years
 Other categories: 10-15 years

Provision should be made for stage construction

Vehicle damage factor (VDF)
A multiplier to convert number of commercial vehicles of
different axle loads and configurations to the number of
standard load repetitions
For major projects axle load survey should be carried out for
determining VDF.
Importance of lateral placement for determining VDF
When sufficient information on axle loads is not available:

Initial traffic vol. Plain/Rolling Hilly

(Comm. Veh.)
0 – 150 1.5 0.5
150 – 1500 3.5 1.5
More than 1500 4.5 2.5
Distribution of commercial traffic over the carriageway
o Single-lane roads: Channelized traffic. Design should be
made based on total no. of commercial vehicles in both
directions.
o Two-lane single carriage way roads: 75% of total number of
commercial vehicles in both directions
o Four-lane single carriageway: 40% of total number of
commercial vehicles in both directions
o Dual-carriageway roads:
 For two-lane 75% of number of commercial vehicles in each
direction
 For three lane 60% of number of commercial vehicles in
each direction
 For four lane 45% of number of commercial vehicles in
each direction
Computation of design traffic:
Cumulative number of standard axles to be carried during
design life of road.
365 [(1+r)n -1]
N = ………………………… x A x D x F
r
A = initial traffic in the year of completion of construction in
terms of number of commercial vehicles per day
D = lane distribution factor
F = vehicle damage factor
n = design life
r = annual growth rate of commercial vehicles
Traffic in the year of completion is estimated as:

A = P (1 + r)x

P = number of commercial vehicles as per last count

x = number of years between the last count and the year of
completion of construction.
Sub-grade
• Should be well compacted whether in cut or fill.
• For high category roads such as NH, SH etc. top 500mm
portion of the soil is being considered as sub-grade.
• Should be contacted to 97% of proctor density achieved
with heavy compaction.
• For NH, SH dry density should not be less than 1.75gm/cc.
• For design, subgrade strength is assessed in terms of CBR
of the subgrade soil at the most critical moisture conditions
likely to occur in-situ.
• Test conditions should reproduce as closely as possible the
weakest conditions likely to occur.
Sub-base course:
 Natural sand, moorum, gravel, laterite, kankar, crushed
stone etc.
 For combination of materials, mixing must be done to
conform to the prescribed grading.
 Materials passing 425micron sieve should have LL and PI
values of 25 and 6 respectively.
 CBR (soaked) should be minimum of 20% for cumulative
traffic up to 2msa and 30% for traffic exceeding 2msa.
 Thickness of sub-base should not be less than 150mm for
design traffic less than 10msa and 200mm for design traffic
of 10msa and above.
 Granular sub-base should be extended over entire
formation width in case sub-grade soil is of low
permeability.
 For sub-grade soil with CBR less than 2%, a capping
layer of 150mm thickness of material with a minimum
CBR of 10% shall be provided in addition to sub-base.

 Where stage construction is adopted, the thickness of

sub-base shall be provided for ultimate pavement
section for the full design life.

 In frost affected areas, care should be taken to avoid the

use of frost susceptible materials.
Base course
 WBM or Wet Mix Macadam (WMM) or other equivalent
granular construction conforming to IRC/ MORTH
specifications shall be adopted.

 Grading and physical requirements must satisfy IRC/

MORTH specifications.
 Minimum thickness granular base is 225mm for traffic upto
2msa and 250mm for traffic exceeding 2msa.
 For heavily trafficked roads, WMM is recommended
 While WBM is adopted, for traffic over 10msa, thickness of
WBM layer is increased from 250 to 300mm (4 layers on
WBM grades II and III each of 75mm compacted thickness)
with corresponding reduction in sub-base thickness.
• Prime Coat: low viscosity liquid bituminous
material to an absorbent surface preparatory to
any super-imposed bituminous treatment.
Provided over untreated layer to fill-in the voids;
coat and bond dust and loose mineral particles.
Hardens the surface and promotes adhesion
between it and superimposed layer.
• Tack coat: application of bituminous binder to an
existing surface to ensure a bond between new
construction and old surface.
Promotes bond between two layers.
Seal Coat:
Recommended as a top coat over certain
bituminous pavements which are not impervious.
It is also provided over an existing bituminous
pavement which is worn out.
It is a thin surface treatment or a single coat
surface dressing applied over an existing black
top surface. A premixed sand bitumen (hot mix)
seal coat is also commonly used over premixed
carpet.
Bituminous surfacing

Consist of either a wearing course or a binder course with a

wearing course depending on traffic.
Commonly used wearing courses are:
 Surface dressing
 Open-graded premix carpet
 Built-up-spray Grout (BUSG)
 Semi-dense bituminous concrete (SDBC)
 Bituminous concrete (BC)

For binder course

 Bituminous Macadam (BM)
 Dense Bituminous Macadam (DBM)
 Bituminous Macadam (BM) has low binder content and high
voids (20-25%) and not fully impervious. Thus are restricted
to roads design to carry less than 5msa.
 DBM is suggested for traffic over 5msa. (void 5-10%)
 If granular base is manually laid, DBM may be preceeded
by a 75mm thick BM. In that case DBM thickness may be
suitably reduced. (10mm BM may be considered as
equivalent to 7mm DBM)

Choice of bituminous wearing course will depend on:

 Design traffic
 Type of base/ binder course provided,
 Stage construction
 Rainfall etc.
Recommended types
and thicknesses are
shown in catalogue
(IRC:37)
Grade of bitumen is selected keeping in view:
 Traffic
 Rainfall
 Other environmental conditions

When wearing course is open graded premix carpet of

thickness upto 25mm, thickness is not to be counted
towards total thickness.
In some cases, total pavement thickness given is slightly
more than thickness obtained from design charts. The
reasons are:
 Provide minimum prescribed thickness of sub-base
 Adapt design of stage construction which necessitated
some adjustment and increase in sub-base thickness.

 Dense Bituminous Macadam (DBM) to be constructed in

two layers when prescribed thickness in more than
100mm.

 The catalogue provides designs for CBR 2,4,6,8,10 and

design traffic 1,2,3,5,10,20,30,50,100,150 msa.

 For intermediate traffic ranges, pavement layer thickness

will be interpolated linearly.
 For traffic exceeding 150msa, pavement design
appropriate to 150msa may be chosen and further
strengthening carried out to extend the life at the
appropriate time based on pavement deflection
measurements.

Drainage measures:
 Performance of pavement can be seriously affected if
adequate drainage measures are not taken to prevent
accumulation of moisture in the pavement structure.
 Difference between bottom of subgrade level and level of
water table/high flood level should not be less than 0.6-1m
 If granular sub-base is of soft variety which may undergo
crushing during rolling leading to denser gradation and low
permeability, top 100-150mm thickness is substituted by
open graded crushed stone layer to ensure proper
drainage.
 Drainage of pavement structure section can be improved by
providing a high permeability drainage layer satisfying the
following criteria:
 Ration of D15 of drainage layer to D15 of subgrade is greater
than or equal to 5
D15 means the size of sieve that allows 15% by weight of
material to pass through it.
To prevent entry of soil particles into drainage layer:
 Ration of D15 of subgrade to D85 of subgrade is less than or
equal to 5 and
 Ration of D50 of drainage layer to D50 of subgrade is less than
or equal to 5
Aggregates meeting following criteria are regarded as good
drainage materials:
D85 < 4 D15 and D2 > 2.5mm
Permeable sub-base when placed on soft erodible soils
should be underlain by a layer of filter material to prevent
intrusion of soil fines into drainage layer.