FINAL PROJECT ON RURAL HIGHYWAY DESIGN 2008E.

APPROVAL PAGE
This Bsc thesis/Project entitled with “final project on rural highway design” has been approved by the
following examiners for partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Bachelor of Science in
Civil Engineering.

Date of Defense: June 14, 2016

Advisor Name

Mr. Abera Ezineh _______ ______

Principal Advisor Signature Date

Members of the Examining board:

1. Mr. Bulcha Begna _______ ________

First Examiner Signature Date

2. Mr. AnbessaBekele ________ _______

Second Examiner Signature Date

3. Mr. Addisu Bekele _______ ________

Head, Civil Eng’g Department Signature Date

4. Mr. Yitay Berhanu _______ ________

Dean, SCECT Signature Date

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 FINAL PROJECT ON RURAL HIGHYWAY DESIGN 2008E.C

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Our inner being always declares us that, had it not been for the Almighty God’s unreserved all round
support, we couldn’t reach here. So praises be to Him for helping us to complete our project.
We would like to express our deep gratitude to our Advisors in civil engineering department, Abera
Ezineh for them unlimited assistance in providing us all the necessary information and data for our
project. Also we would like to thank Mr. Yared for supporting us with idea.
We would also like to thank our department head he try to give us this project since we was interested at
highway project and at the time it was not available. We are eternally grateful for our beloved families
for their financial support. Last but not least, we are obliged to thank our dorm mates and colleagues for
their wonderful encouragements.

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 FINAL PROJECT ON RURAL HIGHYWAY DESIGN 2008E.C

ABSTRACT

This project divided in to nine chapters, the first chapter deal about
introduction of our project. The second chapter deals with literature review,
chapter three, is dealing with methodologies used in our project design ,chapter
four deals about geometric design as per ERA design standard which involves
design speed design vehicle, terrain type design procedures , computation of
vertical and horizontal elements. Chapter five deal about cross sectional element
and design of each element. Chapter six about flexible pavement design, chapter
seven deals about drainage design, chapter eight earth work and last which is
chapter nine deals about summery of our project including conclusion and
recommendation.
.

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 FINAL PROJECT ON RURAL HIGHYWAY DESIGN 2008E.C

TABLE OF CONTENTS
chapter one ...................................................................................................................................... 1
1 introduction .................................................................................................................................. 1
1.1 objective of the project .......................................................................................................... 1
1.2 project background information ............................................................................................ 2
1.3 location of the project............................................................................................................ 2
1.3.1 project location and accessibility ............................................................................................................................... 2
1.3.2 general information ............................................................................................................................................................. 2
1.3.3 topography ................................................................................................................................................................................ 3
chapter two ...................................................................................................................................... 7
2 literature review ........................................................................................................................... 7
2.1 rout selction ................................................................................................................................................................................. 7
2.2.1 factors controlling high way alignment ........................................................................ 9
2.1.2 criteria to evaluate the most feasible route ................................................................... 11
2.2 design control and criteria ................................................................................................... 13
2.2.1 functional classification of the road.............................................................................. 13
2.2.2 design period................................................................................................................. 14
2.2.3 base line traffic flow ..................................................................................................... 15
2.2.4 traffic forecasting .......................................................................................................... 16
2.2.5 terrains .......................................................................................................................... 17
2.2.6 design vehicle ............................................................................................................... 21
2.2.7 character of adjoining land use ..................................................................................... 22
2.2.8 design speed ………………………………………………………………………….22

chapter three .................................................................................................................................. 24

3 materials and methods ............................................................................................................ 24
3.1 materials.......................................................................................................................................................................................... 24
3.2 methods that proceed for our project using inroad ........................................................... 24
chapter four ................................................................................................................................... 25
4 geometric design ........................................................................................................................ 25
4.1overview ............................................................................................................................... 25

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 FINAL PROJECT ON RURAL HIGHYWAY DESIGN 2008E.C

4.2 the design exception process ............................................................................................... 25

4.3 elements of geometric design .............................................................................................. 25
4.3.1 topography ............................................................................................................................................................................. 26
4.3.2 design speed .......................................................................................................................................................................... 26
4.3.3 Environmental consideration………………………………………………………...27

4.4 horizontal alignment ............................................................................................................ 28

4.4.1 tangent sections............................................................................................................. 29
4.4.2 circular curve ................................................................................................................ 29
4.4.3 horizontal circular curve parameter .............................................................................. 32
4.5 sight distance ....................................................................................................................... 36
4.5.1 stopping sight distance.................................................................................................. 36
4.5.2 passing sight distance ................................................................................................... 37
4.6 vertical alignment ................................................................................................................ 45
4.6.1 vertical curve ................................................................................................................ 46
4.6.1.1 gradients..................................................................................................................... 47
4.6.1.2 Crust curve………………………………………………………………………47

4.6.1.3 sag curves .................................................................................................................. 48

4.6.2 vertical curve design ..................................................................................................... 52
4.7 transition curves .................................................................................................................. 60
4.8 super elevation and super elevation runoff ......................................................................... 61
4.6 widening of highway .......................................................................................................... 66
chapter five.................................................................................................................................... 67
5 crossectional element ................................................................................................................. 67
5.1 carriage way and shoulder ................................................................................................... 67
5.2 earth work profile ................................................................................................................ 69
5.3 highway travel lanes ............................................................................................................ 70
5.4 normal cross fall .................................................................................................................. 70
chapter six ..................................................................................................................................... 71
6 pavement design......................................................................................................................... 71
6.2 the design process................................................................................................................ 72

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 FINAL PROJECT ON RURAL HIGHYWAY DESIGN 2008E.C

6.3 traffic ................................................................................................................................... 72

6.4 design life ............................................................................................................................ 72
6.51 vehicle classification ......................................................................................................... 73
6.6 base line traffic flow ............................................................................................................ 74
6.7 equivalency factors .............................................................................................................. 74
6.8 axle loading ......................................................................................................................... 77
6.9 traffic classes for flexible pavement design ........................................................................ 80
6.10 sub grade ........................................................................................................................... 81
6.11 sub grade strength classes ................................................................................................. 83
6.12 design of pavement thicknes ............................................................................................. 83
chapter seven ................................................................................................................................. 94
7 draning .................................................................................................................................... 94
7.1 general ................................................................................................................................. 94
7.2 methods used for discharge calculation .................................................................................. 96
7.2.1 the rational method .............................................................................................................. 96
7.3 hydrological soil groups for ethiopia……………………………………….....………….…97

7.4 scs method of estimating flood.......................................................................................... 103

7.5 hydraulic design of culvert ................................................................................................ 105
7.6 drainage design .................................................................................................................. 108
chapter eight ................................................................................................................................ 114
8 earth work and mass haul diagram........................................................................................... 114
8.1 general ............................................................................................................................... 114
8.2 purpose of earth work:....................................................................................................... 114
8.3 preparation of mass haul diagram ..................................................................................... 114
chapter nine ................................................................................................................................. 124
9 summary................................................................................................................................... 124
9.1 conclusion and reccomendation ........................................................................................ 124
9.2 recommendation ................................................................................................................ 126
references .............. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………126

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LIST OF FIGURE
Figure 1.1………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..3
Figure 2.1………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………18
Figure 2.2………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………20
Figure 2.3…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………......………………………20

Figure2.4 ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………21
Figure 4.1……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..28
Figure 4.2……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..32
Figure 4. 5…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….45

Figure 7.1………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………101

Figure 7.2…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….102

Figure7.3…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….107

Figure 7.4……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………113

Figure 8.1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………...121

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 FINAL PROJECT ON RURAL HIGHYWAY DESIGN 2008E.C

List of Table
Table 1.1 .........................................................................................................................................3
Table 1.2 .........................................................................................................................................6
Table 2.1 ........................................................................................................................................15
Table2.2 .........................................................................................................................................15
Table 2.3 ........................................................................................................................................16
Table 2.4 ........................................................................................................................................17

Table 2.5 ........................................................................................................................................22

Table 4.1………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..29

Table 4.2 ........................................................................................................................................31

Table 4.3 .......................................................................................................................................31
Table 4.4 ........................................................................................................................................35
Table 4.5 ........................................................................................................................................37
Table 4.6 ........................................................................................................................................38
Table 4.7 ........................................................................................................................................39
Table 4.8 ........................................................................................................................................45
Table 4.9 ........................................................................................................................................47
Table4.10 .......................................................................................................................................48
Table 4.11 ......................................................................................................................................49
Table 4.12 ......................................................................................................................................49
Table 4.13 .....................................................................................................................................52
Table 4.14 ......................................................................................................................................53
Table 4.15 .....................................................................................................................................66
Table 5.1 ........................................................................................................................................68
Table 5.2 ........................................................................................................................................69
Table 5.3 ........................................................................................................................................69

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 FINAL PROJECT ON RURAL HIGHYWAY DESIGN 2008E.C

Table6.1 .........................................................................................................................................73
Table 6.2 ........................................................................................................................................74
Table 6.3 ........................................................................................................................................75
Table 6.4 ........................................................................................................................................76
Table 6.5 ........................................................................................................................................76
Table 6.6 .......................................................................................................................................77
Table 6.7 ........................................................................................................................................78
Table 6.8 ........................................................................................................................................79
Table 6.9 ........................................................................................................................................80
Table 6.10 ......................................................................................................................................80
Table 6.11 ......................................................................................................................................81
Table 6.12 .....................................................................................................................................82
Table 6.13 ......................................................................................................................................83
Table 6.14 ......................................................................................................................................84
Table 6.15 ......................................................................................................................................91
Table6.16 .......................................................................................................................................92
Table 6.17………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………93

Table 7.1 ........................................................................................................................................95

Table 7.2 ........................................................................................................................................97
Table 7.3 ......................................................................................................................................104
Table7.4 .......................................................................................................................................106
Table7.5 ......................................................................................................................................106
Table 7.6 ......................................................................................................................................108
Table 7.7 ......................................................................................................................................111
Table 8.1 ......................................................................................................................................115

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