Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, UWI 2021‐2022 ‐ Semester II

CVNG 3011 Pavement Design & Management

SEAPORT PAVEMENT DESIGN

Considerations for Seaport Pavements

Heavy Duty Pavement is a pavement where the loading exceeds highway levels because for
example of the handling of containers by Straddle Carriers, Front Lift Trucks or Reach Stackers.
Many elements of the design metho d s fo r h igh way p av emen ts are not suitable for designing
heavy duty flexible pavements for functions such as ports, container terminals and airports.
Typically, the pavements consist of a surface layer, either concrete blocks or asphalt, over a stiff
layer of a cement bound material to reduce the risk of settlements and rutting over time. These
differences greatly influence the material requirements for the pavements.

There are many design guides available for heavy duty pavements, some that are specified for
ports for container handling like the HIPAVE program. The design guides for ports are divided
into two categories, chart based design and program based design.

At most container handling facilities, the pavements are affected by two loading regimes. The
first is that containers are stored in blocks and the second one is the handling equipment that
operate alongside these blocks. Storage area has to be designed to sustain both types of loading
because some handling systems require the equipment to enter the blocks, this can greatly
increase the cost of the pavement.

Design Procedures

Chart Based Methods

The chart based method that is put forward in the Interpave Heavy Duty Pavements Manual
considers the way the pavement is trafficked by evaluating the Single Equivalent Wheel Load
(SEWL). The principle of separating design into three essential parts, i.e.

1. selection of the surface,

2. proportioning the base and
3. providing a suitable foundation,

As the Design Chart is only made for a specific type of a base course material the Material
Equivalence Factors (MEFs) can be used to effectively swap one material for another during the
design process compared to other methods that have many different design charts for different
materials. This means that the designer can produce many alternate design solutions using
different materials when a design has been created using the Design Chart.
 Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, UWI 2021‐2022 ‐ Semester II
CVNG 3011 Pavement Design & Management

The manual recommends a specific combination of materials to be used in the pavement design,
that is commonly used and proved successful.

 Concrete Block Paving (CBP) on cement bound base

 80mm thickness concrete paving blocks
 30mm thickness laying course material
 Cement bound base
 Crushed rock or cement bound sub-base
 Capping if subgrade California Bearing Ratio (CBR) is less than 5%

It can also be used for a wide range of materials by the use of a Material Equivalent Factor (MEF)
which will be explained in more detail later in the chapter.

Annual Container Movements

Firstly, the growth rate has to be known or computed. This can be done using Compound Annual
Growth Rate (CAGR) formula.

Then this is followed by forecasting the number of containers for design life years to estimate
future traffic.
 Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, UWI 2021‐2022 ‐ Semester II
CVNG 3011 Pavement Design & Management

Calculating the Number of wheel passes by the plant. This is calculated using information of

 the forecasted number of containers and

 number of wheel passes for the stacking and unstacking of one container given the
geometry of the site.

This value of number of wheel passes will be useful for the base design.

Example

Pavements Material

In the design method described in the Interpave Manual, the pavement layers are a Hydraulically
Bound Mixture (HBM) as a base layer supporting a concrete block paving.

Concrete block paving has become the normal heavy duty pavement surface material although
many manuals and guides suggest using bituminous concrete. Hydraulically Bound Mixtures
have been found to be cost effective and low maintenance base material, they consist of Cement
Bound Granular Mixtures (CBGM), Slag Bound Mixtures and Fly Ash Bound Mixtures.
 Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, UWI 2021‐2022 ‐ Semester II
CVNG 3011 Pavement Design & Management

Pavement Loading

The loading system to be used on the pavement is transformed to a Single Equivalent Wheel
Load (SEWL) describing the actual loads. Damages account for how both tire pressure and wheel
loads combine to degrade the pavement. Different magnitude of wheel loads will cause different
degrees of damage to the pavement.
Loading on Heavy Duty Pavements exceed highway levels because of the handling of containers
by Straddle Carriers, Front Lift Trucks or Reach Stackers. The design load to be used should be
the Critical Load, which is defined as the load whose value and number of repetitions leads to the
most pavement damage.
The dynamic load factor, fd, takes into account the effects of dynamic loading induced by
braking, cornering, acceleration and uneven surface. The wheel loads are adjusted by the factors
represented in Table 2.

In a design when only one wheel is considered, the maximum horizontal stress occurs under the
center of the wheel and reduces with distance from the wheel. However, if there are two wheels
close together the stresses under the wheels affect each other so the stress under each wheel is
increased by a specific amount related to the proximity of the other wheel. The proximity factors
are based on spacing between the wheels and the Effective Depth of the slab.
 Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, UWI 2021‐2022 ‐ Semester II
CVNG 3011 Pavement Design & Management

The wheel proximity factors seen in Table are multiplied with the static wheel load to determine
the effective wheel load.

The Manual provides equations to calculate the wheel load for the following handling plants;
- Front Lift Trucks and Reach Stackers
- Straddle Carriers
- Side Lift Trucks
- Yard Gantry Cranes
- Tractor and Trailer Systems
- Mobile Cranes

In the wheel calculations only one side of the plant is considered and in the case of an
asymmetrical plant, the heavier side is chosen.

The Effective Depth can be approximated with a formula, the following equation, that depends
on the CBR of the subgrade and it represents the theoretical depth of the slab had it been
constructed from subgrade material.

The CBR is the only variable in the equation, the other parameters are constants.
 Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, UWI 2021‐2022 ‐ Semester II
CVNG 3011 Pavement Design & Management

Base Layer Design

From the Single Equivalent Wheel Load and the assumed amount of traffic over the design period
the Design Chart can be used to estimate the thickness of the base layer. The Design Chart only
applies to C8/10 cement bound granular mixture but with the use of Material Equivalence
Factors, the base layer thickness can be estimated for other materials.
 Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, UWI 2021‐2022 ‐ Semester II
CVNG 3011 Pavement Design & Management

Subbase & Capping Layer Design

The foundation comprises of a sub-base and a capping layer, if the pavement is constructed over a
subgrade with a CBR less than 5%. However, if the pavement is constructed over a subgrade with
a CBR of 5% or more the foundation only comprises of a sub-base.

Unbound sub-base and capping thickness for various CBR values. The California Bearing Ratio
of the subgrade must be measured at deeper locations than in the case of a highway pavement
because in heavy duty pavement the stresses develop at much greater depths. Unbound materials
are the most commonly used materials to construct the foundation although hydraulically bound
materials may be preferred in some situations.

FINAL DESIGN THICKNESS

January 2022
Dr Lee Leon