ELEMENTS OF CIVIL ENGINEERING

UNIT-V

LEARNING MATERIAL

UNIT-V

HIGHWAY ENGINEERING

Introduction: The major modes of transportation are highways or roadways,

railways, waterways and airways. Apart from the above modes of
transportation, other modes are cable cars, monorails, aerial ropeways,
pipelines, belt conveyors, elevators etc. Transportation by road is most
important mode which is used by one and all, i.e., nearest to all. The science
and technology dealing with roadways is called road engineering or highway
engineering. This mode offers lot of flexibility for travel like selection route,
direction, time and speed. Road transport is a must in order to avail the other
modes like airways, waterways and railways. Thus, road or highway
engineering is the most important mode of transportation.

Historical Background Of Road or Highway: The Romans are considered to be

the pioneers in the construction of road although traces of hard surfaces
resembling to road surface have been found in Mesopotamia in the period of
about 3500 BC. The excavation of Mohenj odaro and Harappa as early around
2500 BC revealed the prehistoric road construction in India. The Emperor
Ashoka in the fifth century AD constructed many roads in his kingdom for the
travelers. During Roman Empire, an extensive road construction was made in
Rome The Appian Way of 580 km long built in 312 BC is an example of road
building technique by the Romans. In France, Pierre Tresaguet in the year
1764 developed few improved methods of road construction and during the
regime of Napoleon major development roads took place. John Macadam,
Surveyor General of Roads in England in 1827 developed a new method of road
construction. The roads constructed by various methods developed by him are
still known as Water Bound Macadam (WBM), Penetration Macadam (PM),
Bituminous Macadam (BM) roads. Macadam's method of construction was
scientific and hence it is still popular in other countries with slight
modification.

Highway planning in India: Out of different roads he developed, Water Bound

Macadam (WBM) road is popular even in India. In India, roads were improved
to a major extent during Mughal period. During British rule in India, Lord
Dalhousie, who was the Governor General, founded Public Works Department
(PWD) that exists till today. Many more developments in India on road or
highway engineering had taken place owing to M.R.Jayakar Committee in
1927, Indian Road Congress (IRC) in 1934, Nagpur Road Congress in 1943,
establishment of Central Road Research Institute (CRRI) in New Delhi in the
year 1950, National Highway Act in 1956, Highway Research Board in 1973
and National Transport Policy Committee in 1978.

Classification of Roads: The classification of roads mainly depends on traffic

volume, load to be transported, locations and functions. Based on the traffic
volume, roads are classified as heavy, medium and light traffic roads. Similarly,
based on the load transported, they are classified as class I, class II or class A,
class B, etc. The acceptable classification is based on locations and functions.
The Nagpur Road Congress classified the roads on the bases of locations and
functions as: (a) National highways (NH) (b) State highways (SH) (c) Major
district roads (MDR) (d) Other district roads (ODR) (e) Village roads (VR)

National Highways (NH) These are main roads running throughout the whole
country connecting capitals of the states, major ports, foreign highways, large
industrial and tourists plots including roadways essential for strategic
movements for defence of the country. It has been agreed that NH should be
constructed by central government with collaboration of state PWD. National
highways should be the frame of entire road communications of the country.
All highways may be of different specifications. All of them are assigned
different names like NH-1, NH-2, and NH-37, NH-49 and so on.

State Highways (SH) The arterial roads of the state connecting the national
highways of nearby states, district head quarters, and important cities within
the state are called state highways. They serve as the main arteries for the
traffic to and from the district roads. Their geometric design specifications and
design speed are more or less to NH.

Major District Roads (MDR) These are important roads of the districts
connecting areas of production, markets. They also connect each other or with
main highways of the districts. The geometric design specifications and speed
are lower than NH or SH.

Other District Roads (ODR) These are roads connecting rural areas of
production, outlets to market centres, circle head quarters, block development
centres and to other main roads. Their design specifications are lower than
MDR.
Village Roads (VR) These roads connect villages or group of villages. They also
connect nearest roads of higher category like MDR. They are also very
important for farms established in village areas.

Pavement or carriage way is that part of road or high way which supports the
wheel loads imposed on it from traffic moving over it. It should be strong
enough to resist the stresses that are being developed due to traffic.

TYPES OF PAVEMENT: Pavements are classified from the point of structural

behaviour as: (a) Flexible pavement (b) Rigid pavement (c) Semi-rigid
pavement (d) Composite pavement

Flexible Pavement: Flexible pavement, has low flexural strength. The external
load in this ,pavement is largely transmitted to the sub-grade by lateral
distribution with increase in depth. The thickness of the pavement is so
designed that stresses in the subgrade soil are kept within its bearing capacity.
The typical flexible pavement has the following components, and they are
shown in Figure (a) Soil sub-grade (b) Sub-base course (c) Base course (d)
Surface course

Rigid Pavement Rigid pavement derives its capacity to withstand load from
flexural strength or rigidity. The stresses developed are not transmitted to the
lower layers like flexible one. The top layer is of plain cement concrete which
withstand stresses up to about 400 N/cm2 . . Rigid pavement is made of
Portland cement concrete. The rigid pavement doesn’t get deformed under
wheel load like flexible pavement.
COMPARISON OF FLEXIBLE AND RIGID PAVEMENTS:

Design of rigid pavement is based-scientific design pavement design where as

flexible pavement is mostly empirical in nature.

Life of rigid pavement is more than the flexible

Maintenance of well designed rigid pavement is low here as flexible pavement

needs frequent maintenance

Initial cost of rigid pavement is much more than the flexible one

Selection of type of pavement depends on

availability of materials of construction

Surface characteristics play another role of selection of type of pavement.

A good cement surface is smooth, free from pot holes and corrugations. Flexible
pavement does not possess the above facilities.

Impervious layer of the pavement is essential for the subgrade. Preference will
always be the rigid pavement as concrete is impervious.

Traffic dislocation during construction for about a month takes place as

concrete requires minimum 28 days for curing and setting. In flexible
pavement, traffic is allowed to move on the pavement once it is rolled.

Earth Roads • These are the low cost or cheapest type of road made of locally
available natural soil. • The camber provided in earth road is usually steep
which ranges from 1 in 20 to 1 in 33 although it is better to have slope 1 in 20
to prevent erosion by rain water. • As the surface is pervious, large cross slope
keeps the pavement free from water standing thereby softening surface is
prevented. • Construction steps require clearing of site, centre line and road
edges marking, excavation and filling the soil to bring it to the desired level and
slope and shaping of sub-grade.

Gravel Roads • Gravel roads are superior to earth road as they can carry heavier
traffics. Gravels are used to construct the carriage way. • The camber used is from 1
in 25 to 1 in 30. • A gravel road does not become slippery when wetted by rain. • There
are two types of gravel road. One is trench type and other is feather edge type as
shown in Figure.
In the trench type, sub-grade is prepared by excavating a shallow trench and feather
type is constructed over the sub-grade with varying thickness. Trench is better as the
gravel used is nicely confined in it.

Water Bound Macadam •Water Bound Macadam (WBM) Road WBM road is known
after John Macadam, Surveyor General of Roads in England in 1827, who was the first
to introduce this particular road. • The roads whose wearing course consists of clean
crushed aggregates mechanically interlocked by rolling and bound together with filler
material and layer and laid on a well compacted base course is called water bound
macadam road. • The strength of a water bound macadam course is due to the
mechanical interlocking of the aggregate particles and the cohesion between the
aggregate particles due to cementious film of soil moisture binder. •The WBM roads
are in use in our country both as a finished pavement surface for minor roads and as
a good base course for superior pavements carrying heavy traffic.

Bituminous Roads • This road is common in India and also in abroad. • Over the
existing stabilized gravel or stone pavement, a thin bituminous layer is laid as a
wearing coat. • A thin layer of bituminous binder is sprayed over this cleaned surface
before construction of any type of bituminous layer. This is called interface treatment
which is essential to provide the necessary bond between the old and new layer. •
After that bituminous layer is laid and roller is used for compaction and binding with
the sub-grade pavement.

TRAFFIC CONTROL MECHANISMS OR DEVICES • The various aids and devices used
to control, regulate and guide traffic are called traffic control mechanisms or devices.
The most common devices or mechanisms are divider, islands, signals and signs. In
addition to this road lights are quite essential in guiding traffics during night.

DIVIDERS • Divider is a separator of road for vehicles moving from opposite direction
in order to avoid any collision with traffics of lanes separated by divider. • It is a
masonry structure constructed in the middle of the road to divide the road into two
portions for vehicles coming from opposite directions. • It is very much essential in the
busiest zone of city. • Provisions are made for U-turn of vehicles proving gaps in the
dividers at some design length. • In national highway having more than one lanes in
both sides, divider is called usually a separator of about 8 m wide. The divider in city
road is rectangular or trapezoidal in shape with usual base width from 1 m to 1.5 m
TRAFFIC ROTARY • A traffic rotary or rotary intersection is an enlarged road
intersection where all converging vehicles are forced to move round a large central
island in clockwise direction before they can weave out of traffic flow into their
respective directions radiating from the central island. • Figure is an example of rotary
island where vehicles from four roads are converging. • The arrow indicates direction
of movement of the vehicles. • The main objective of providing a rotary is to eliminate
the necessity of stopping even crossing streams of vehicles and to reduce their area of
conflict. • All vehicles are allowed to merge into the stream around the rotary and then
to diverge out to the desired radiating road. Thus, crossing of vehicles is avoided. •
Merging of vehicle takes place towards right and diverging operation towards the left •
Design factors of rotary depend on speed, shape of island, its radius, entrance and exit
curves and on many other points which is outside the scope of this discussion.