Concrete Pavement Design

Here the pavement is an internal road connecting various blocks inside the hospital campus.
So the commercial vehicle traffic expected on to the pavement is very less. So the pavement
can be treated as low-volume road and can be designed according to the guide lines of IRC
:SP: 62 – 2014.

Assume a trail thickness of slab as 150 mm on 75 mm thick WMM layer and both are on 100
mm thick granular subbase (GSB) layer. The complete layers are on a subgrade of CBR 7%.
Transverse joint spacing is 3.75m.

1. Wheel loads on to Pavement

On this pavement heavy vehicles are not expected frequently and the single axle loads with
dual wheels are not expected to be more than the legal load limits in India i.e., 100 kN.

2. Design Period
The design life of this pavement is taken as 40 years.

3. Design Traffic
Initial commercial vehicles per day (assumed) = 50 veh/day (hence case – 1)

Growth rate per year (assumed) = 5 %

Total number of commercial vehicles at the end of design life = 17,63,677 vehs

4. Subgrade characterstics
The CBR of subgrade is assumed to be = 7 %

Modulus of subgrade reaction = 48 MPa/m (from table 3.1, IRC: SP: 62-2014)

5. Subbase
75 mm thick Wet Mix Macadam (WMM) layer over 100 mm of granular subbase (GSB) may
be used as a subbase. The specifications of WMM and GSB shall MORT – specifications of
roads and bridges works.
Effective modulus of subgrade reaction = 57 MPa/m

6. Concrete strength
Compressive strength of concrete = 30 MPa (M30 concrete)

28 days flexural strength of concrete = 3.83 MPa

90 days flexural strength of concrete = 4.22 MPa

Modulus of elasticity of concrete and the Poisson’s ratio taken as 30,000 MPa and 0.15.

7. Edge load stress

Effective modulus of subgrade reaction = 57 MPa/m

Type of tyres assumed is dual wheels.

Temperature zone of Faridabad, Haryana is Zone – 2

Spacing of wheels Sd (standard) = 310 mm

Wheel load P = 50 kN

Tyre pressure = 0.8 MPa

Stress developed = 4.13 Mpa (< 4.22 Mpa)

Hence the design slab thickness is safe over its design life.

8. Transverse Joints
The contraction joints 3 to 5 mm wide shall be cut as soon as the concrete has undergone
initial hardening and is hard enough to take the load of the joint sawing machine without
causing damage to the slab. The sawing operation should be completed within 24 hours. The
depth of sawing should be from 1/4 to 1/3 of the depth of the slab. The aggregate interlock at
the contraction joints with discontinuity up to the one third/one fourth of the depth is itself
adequate for load transfer and no dowel bars are necessary.
9. Longitudinal Joint
Where the width of concrete slab exceeds 4.5 m joints 3 to 5 mm wide shall be cut at the mid
width and depth of cut should be from 1/4 to 1/3 of the depth of the slab.