Professional Documents
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Highway Engineering
Lecture
9
Structural Design
AASHTO Flexible Pavement Design
Rigid Pavement Design
Road Note 29
Structural Design
Flexible Pavement
A key element of flexible pavement design
in the 1993 AASHTO Guide for Design of
Pavement Structures is the Structural
Number (SN), which represents the overall
structural requirement needed to sustain
the traffic loads expected in the design.
The SN depends on a combination of soil
support, ESAL loading, pavement
serviceability and environmental
conditions. Nomographs are generally
used to determine the value of SN.
Structural Design
Structural Design
Rigid Pavement
The Design Process
The steps in the design of a rigid pavement
are similar to those for a flexible pavement:
ESAL loading on a rigid (Portland cement
concrete) pavement is computed as for
flexible pavements, however the design life
is generally longer, as much as 40 years.
Subgrade strength is assessed, but unlike
flexible pavements, rigid pavements are
designed to have sufficient beam strength to
span over localized subgrade failures and
areas where subgrade support is inadequate.
Expansion Joint
CBR < 2%
Subgrades not in the
other categories
Very Stable
CBR > 15
150
80
0