STRUCTURAL DESIGN PAVEMENTS

Method of Flexible Pavement Design

 Steps That Used To Design Flexible Pavement by
Using ERA Design Manual.
1) Determine traffic class,
2) Determine subgrade class,
3) Select alternative layer from design catalogue, and
4) Compare the layer with respect to their cost.

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 Manual To Be Used
• Ethiopian Roads Authority(ERA-2013)
• Pavement Design Manual Volume 1
• Flexible Pavements Design
• Chapter 10

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Flexible Pavement Design Catalogue

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4
CHART A1: SURFACE TREATMENT, UNBOUND GRANULAR ROADBASE

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CHART A2: SURFACE TREATMENT, COMPOSITE ROAD-
BASE

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CHART A3: SURFACE TREATMENT, CEMENT-BOUND
ROADBASE

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CHART B1: THIN (50mm) FLEXIBLE AC SURFACING,
GRANULAR ROADBASE

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CHART C1: HMA SURFACE, UNBOUND GRANULAR
ROADBASE

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CHART C2: HMA SURFACE, COMPOSITE ROAD BASE

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CHART D1: HMA SURFACE, BITUMEN-BOUND ROADBASE

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 Design Example
From The Previous Example

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 Traffic Classes for Flexible Pavement Design

Traffic class T8 for flexible pavement design. 13

 If the CBR is given below
 CBR values for a highway alignment are given as
follows:3.5, 5.2, 8.0, 6.8, 8.8, 4.2, 6.4, 4.6, 9.0, 5.7,
8.4, 8.2, 7.3, 8.6, 8.9, 7.6.
 Design CBR=4.7%

 Subgrade Class=S3 14
 Alternative Design Catalogue For (T8/S3)
Chart C1: HMA Surface, Unbound Granular Road-base

Asphalt 150 mm
Concrete

Crushed 200 mm
Stone road
base

Granular sub 325 mm

base

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Chart C2: HMA Surface, Composite Road Base
Asphalt Concrete 150
mm
Crushed Stone 150
road base mm
Cement stabilized
Sub base (2.5 MPa 225
UCS) mm

Selected fill/ 125

capping mm

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Chart D1: HMA Surface, Bitumen-bound Road-base

Asphalt Concrete 90 mm
Asphalt Concrete
Road Base 170 mm

Granular sub
base 175 mm

Selected fill/ 150 mm

capping

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Note that
The asphaltic concrete surfacing is usually made up of
 40mm of wearing course and
 50 mm of binder course. =90mm >90mm
 60mm asphaltic Concrete base course
This is due to
 Economical purpose
 Compaction case
 An additional layer of binder or road-base quality
asphaltic concrete may be required for surfacing's
exceeding 90 mm.

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 Relative Unit Costs of Materials

This is a purely hypothetical example. Under no circumstances should

this example be taken as representative of current prices. 19
 Relative Costs of the Alternative Pavement Structures
Alternative Relative Unit
Pavement. Description Cost

Chart C1 40 mm wearing course 0.34

50 mm binder course 0.40

60 mm asphalt base 0.45
course

200 mm crushed stone 1.0

road-base

325mm of sub-base 0.6

Total 2.79
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Cont.…...
Alternative Description Relative Unit
Pavement Cost
Chart C2 40 mm wearing course 0.34
50 mm binder course 0.40
60 mm asphalt base course 0.45
150 mm crushed stone road-base 0.82
225 mm of cement stabilized 0.63
sub-base
125 mm of capping 0.16
Total 2.80

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Cont.…...
Alternative Relative Unit
Pavement. Description Cost

Chart D1 40 mm wearing course 0.34

50 mm binder course 0.40

170 mm asphalt road-base 1.28

175 mm of sub-base 0.33

150 mm of capping 0.19

Total 2.54

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 Final design
• The lowest cost is 2.54 (chart D1)
Asphalt Concrete 90 mm
Asphalt Concrete
Road Base 170 mm

Granular sub
base 175 mm

Selected fill 150 mm

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AASHTO Method For Structural Design
of Flexible Pavement

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 AASHTO METHOD
• The design procedure recommended by the
American Association of State Highway and
Transportation Officials (AASHTO) is based on
the results of the extensive AASHO Road Test
conducted in Ottawa, Illinois, in the late 1950s
and early 1960s .
• The AASHO Committee on Design first
published an interim design guide in 1961 .
• It was revised in 1972 and 1981.
• The guide was also revised in 1993.

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 Design Procedure
• Main requirement is to determine the thicknesses
of various pavement layers to satisfy the design
objectives.
• Assuming that the pavement section consists of
surface, base and sub-base, three thicknesses: D1,
D2 and D3 are required for the three layers,
respectively.
• The design procedure can be divided into series
steps as presented below.

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 Step 1-Reliability (R)
• AASHTO uses the reliability concept to account for design
uncertainties. 
• The reliability of the pavement design-performance process
is the probability that a pavement section designed using the
process will perform satisfactorily over the traffic and
environmental conditions for the design period (AASHTO,
1993).
• The reliability is the chance or probability that pavement
will last for the design period without failure by
environmental and traffic condition.
• A reliability level (R) is selected depending on
 the functional classification of the road and
 whether the road is in urban or rural area.
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The reliability factor is comprised of two variables:
Standard Normal Deviate ZR 
• For example, a designer may specify that there should
only be a 5 % chance that the design does not last a
specified number of years (e.g., 20 years).
• This is the same as stating that there should be a 95 %
chance that the design does last the specified number of
years (e.g., 20 years).
• Then, the reliability is 95 % (100 % – 5 %) and the
corresponding ZR value is -1.645 from AASHTO table.

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Standard Normal Deviates for Various Levels of
Reliability

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 Overall Standard Deviation(S0)
• The overall standard deviation (So) takes into
consideration the variability of all input data.
• For instance, traffic may be estimated at 2,000,000
ESALs over 20 years. However, actual traffic may turn
out to be 2,500,000 ESALs over 20 years due to
unanticipated population growth.
• The 1993 AASHTO design guide recommends
an approximate range of 0.4 to 0.5 for flexible
pavements.
• An overall standard deviation value (So) is
selected by the designer within this range.
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Step 2 -Effective Roadbed Soil Resilient Modulus(M R)
• Resilient Modulus MR is a property of the soil that indicates the
stiffness or elasticity of the soil under dynamic loading.
• Temperature and moisture changes can have an effect on the
strength, durability, and load-carrying capacity of the pavement and
roadbed materials .
• There for the moisture content of the roadbed/subgrade soil must be
evaluated.
• Since the resilient modulus of the soil depends on the moisture
content, different resilient moduli will be obtained in different
seasons depending on the amount of rain or snow in each season.
• In this method, the year is divided into a number of distinct seasons
where the resilient modulus is significantly different.
• The relative damage (uf) corresponding to each MR value is
determined using the scale in the following figure and recorded in
the table. 32
uf =1.18x108MR -2.32

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
• Average
  uf= = =0.31
 Effective Roadbed Soil Resilient Modulus, MR (psi) =
5,000 (corresponds to uf=0.31)

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35
Exercise Calculate the relative damage Uf

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Solution

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Step 3- Resilient Moduli of Pavement Layers
• The resilient moduli (MR) of the surface, base, and
sub-base layers are either determined using laboratory
testing or estimated using previously developed
correlations.

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Step 4 - Serviceability Loss ( performance criteria)
• It is measurement of the behavior of the pavement under traffic or
its ability to serve traffic at some instance during its life.
• serviceability index (PSI) ranging from 5 (perfect condition) to 0
(impossible to travel).
• Initial Serviceability Index (Po): The initial serviceability index
(Po) is the PSI immediately after the pavement is open.
• Terminal Serviceability Index (Pt): The terminal serviceability
index (Pt) is considered to be the PSI that represents the lowest
acceptable level before resurfacing or reconstruction becomes
necessary.
• The serviceability loss is the difference between the initial
serviceability index (po) and the terminal serviceability index (pt)
• ΔPSI = Po - Pt

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 Step 5 -Structural Numbers
 The Structural Number (SN) represents the overall structural
requirement needed to sustain the design’s traffic loadings.
 It is an abstract number that expresses the structural strength of
a pavement required for given combinations of
 soil support (MR),
 total traffic expressed in ESALs,
 terminal serviceability and
 environment.
 The structural number (SN) is an index value that combines
 layer thicknesses,
 structural layer coefficients, and
 drainage coefficients.

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• SN1 ≤ a1D1
• SN2 ≤ a1D1 + a2D2m2
• SN3 ≤ a1D1 + a2D2m2 + a3D3m3
 Where
 a1,a2,and a3 are layer coefficients for the surface, base,
and sub -base, respectively.
 m2 is the drainage coefficient of base course and m3 is
the drainage coefficient of sub-base course.
 D1 , D2 , and D3 are the thicknesses of the surface ,base,
and sub-base, respectively.

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 Step 6-Structural Layer Coefficients
• It is a measure of the relative ability of a unit thickness of
a given material to function as a structural component of
the pavement.
 A typical a1 value for the dense-graded HMA is 0.44,
which corresponds to a resilient modulus of 450,000 psi.
Table Resilient Modules Vs. Structural Layer Coefficients
Resilient Modules (psi) a1
450,000 0.44
400,000 0.42
300,000 0.36
200,000 0.30
100,000 0.20 43
Chart for estimating layer coefficient of dense-graded asphalt
concrete based on elastic modulus

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Correlation charts for estimating resilient modulus of HMA

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 Untreated and Stabilized Base Courses
a2 = 0.249(log E2 ) — 0.977 ( Equation)
Table CBR Vs. Structural Layer Coefficients untreated base
CBR a2
100 0.14
55 0.12
45 0.11
30 0.09
20 0.07

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Correlation charts for estimating resilient modulus of
bases (1 lb = 4 .45 KN, 1 psi =6.9 kPa) .

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 Granular Sub-base Course
a3 = 0.227(log E3 ) — 0.839 ( Equation)
Table CBR Vs. Structural Layer Coefficients

CBR a3
100 0.14
40 0.12
30 0.11
25 0.10
15 0.09
10 0.08

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Correlation chart for estimating resilient modulus of sub-bases

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Correlation Between CBR and Resilient Modulus

CBR = 30 CBR =80

Location MR (psi) Location MR (psi)

Base 20,000 Base 29,000

Sub-base 14,700 Sub-base 20,000

Subgrade 19,000 Subgrade 39,000

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 Step 7 - Drainage Coefficients
• Drainage coefficients are measures of the quality of
drainage and the availability of moistures in the granular
base and sub-base.
• Recommended Drainage Coefficients for Untreated
Bases and Sub-bases in Flexible Pavement

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 Step -8 Cumulative Equivalent Single Axle Load
• In this step, the designer assumes a designed life,
typically in the range of 10 to 20 years.
• The cumulative expected 18-kip (80-kN) ESAL during
the designed life in the design lane.
• W18=?

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Step-9 Selection of Layer Thicknesses

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 Procedure
1) Using E2 as MR, determine from figure the
structural number SN1 required to protect the
base, and compute the thickness of layer 1.

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2) Using E3 as MR, determine from figure the structural
number SN2 required to protect the sub-base, and compute
the thickness of layer 2.

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3) Based on the roadbed soil resilient modulus MR,
determine from figure the total structural number SN3
required, and compute the thickness of layer 3.

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Minimum Thickness for Asphalt Surface and Aggregate
Base

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General Equation

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 Where
 W18 = Cumulative expected 18-kip ESAL during the
designed life in the design lane.
 ZR = Normal deviate for a given reliability R.
 So = Standard deviation (0.4-0.5).
 ∆PSI=Serviceability Loss.
 SN = structural number of pavement.
 MR=Effective Roadbed Soil Resilient Modulus.

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EXAMPLE

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THANK YOU

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