PAVEMENT DESIGN (15CV833)

MODULE 3

TYPES OF FAILURE

1. Alligator Cracking of Flexible Pavements

Alligator cracks are also called as map cracking. This is a fatigue failure caused in the asphalt
concrete. A series of interconnected cracks are observed due to such distress.The tensile stress is
maximum at the asphalt surface (base). This is the position where the cracks are formed, i.e. the
area with maximum tensile stress. A parallel of longitudinal cracks will propagate with time and
reaches the surface. Repeated loading and stress concentration will help the individual cracks to
get connected. These will resemble as a chicken wire or similar to the alligator skin. This is
termed as the alligator cracking. It is also known as the crocodile cracking.These cracking is
observed only in areas that have repeated traffic loading. Alligator cracking is one of the major
structural distress. This distress is later accompanied by rutting. The figure-1 below shows
alligator cracks formed in the pavement.

VTUPulse.com

Fig.1: Alligator Cracks Formed in Flexible Pavements

2. Depressions in Flexible Pavements: There are certain areas in the pavement that are
localized and have a lower elevation compared to the surrounding pavement level. These
lowering are depressions found on the pavement. They are mainly noticed only when they are
filled with water (After rain).Depressions in flexible pavements are a very common distress
found in parking lot construction as well as in overlays. These depressions can be caused either

Department of Civil Engg. GMIT 1|Page

PAVEMENT DESIGN (15CV833)

by the foundation soil settlement due to continuous loading or it can be formed during the
construction.There are different severity levels that are considered for the depression in the
flexible pavement that is constructed for airfield purposes.

Fig.2: Depression Distress

3. Corrugations in Flexible Pavements: The corrugations are distress seen in the pavement at
regular intervals in the form of ridges and valleys. These are usually less than 5 feet, along with
the direction of the pavement.The ridges form of corrugations will be perpendicular to the traffic
direction. Unstable pavement plus traffic will create such distress. Where the traffic starts and

VTUPulse.com
stops, this distress are observed.

4. Shoving:A form of plastic movement that is seen in the form of the wave is called as shoving
distress. These are also observed perpendicular to the direction of the traffic.

Fig.4: Shoving

5. Potholes

In road surfaces where a portion of the same has broken away, cause a disruption by forming a
pothole. These are also called as a kettle. In the Western United States, these are known as
chuckhole. The pavement fatigue is the main reason behind the formation of potholes. The
occurrence of fatigue cracking will interlock to form alligator cracking. These chunks between
the cracks formed in the pavement will become loose and will be picked out under continuous

Department of Civil Engg. GMIT 2|Page

PAVEMENT DESIGN (15CV833)

loading and stresses. This will leave a pothole on the pavement. In cold temperatures, the water
trapped in the pothole will carry out the freezing and thawing action that leads to additional
stresses and crack propagation.

Once the pothole is formed, the distress grows resulting in the continuous removal of pavement
chunks. Water entrapped will increase this rate of expansion of distress. The pothole can expand
to several feet in width. They don’t develop too much in depth. The vehicle tires are damaged
due to large potholes.

Fig.5: Potholes in Pavement

VTUPulse.com
6. Rutting of Flexible Pavements: The depression formed in the surface is called the rutting.
This is formed in the wheel path surface. This depression will make the other sides of the wheel
to undergo uplift as shown in the figure-6. This pavement uplift is also called as shearing.These
ruts like depressions are evident after rain. Where these depressions would be filled with water.
There are two types of rutting that can occur;

 Pavement Rutting

 Subgrade Rutting

Department of Civil Engg. GMIT 3|Page

PAVEMENT DESIGN (15CV833)

Fig.6: Showing the Rutting Formation under Vehicular Load

VTUPulse.com Fig.6: Real-Time Formation of Ruts

7. Swelling of Flexible Pavements

These are distress that long and gradual wave. These can be ten feet long. The swelling distress
is characterized by the upward bulge in the pavement surface. Surface cracking is the next series
of distress that is seen after swelling.The main reason behind swelling in flexible pavement is the
frost action in the subgrade. Where frosting results in the swelling of the soil.

Department of Civil Engg. GMIT 4|Page

PAVEMENT DESIGN (15CV833)

Fig.7: Swelling in Road Pavements

CAUSES OF FLEXIBLE PAVEMENT

The 3 common causes of failure of flexible pavement are as follow

1. Failure of subgrade
2. Failure of sub-base or base course
3. Failure of surface or wearing course

VTUPulse.com
1. FAILURE OF SUBGRADE

This is the main cause of flexible pavement failure. When there is excessive deformation in
subgrade soil, it will result in failure of whole pavement. The failure of subgrade soil can be
detected by the following forms of defects causing unevenness of pavement surface.

 Excessive undulation & corrugation on surface

 Depression followed by heaving at surface
 Lateral shoving of pavement near the edge along the wheel path

The two primary reasons of failure of subgrade soil are

 Inadequate stability
 Excessive stress application

Department of Civil Engg. GMIT 5|Page

PAVEMENT DESIGN (15CV833)

i)Inadequate stability: Stability is the resistance to deformation under stress. When soil used for
construction of subgrade is of inferior quality, it will not be able to resist the load coming from
wheel, and ultimately it will fail.

Another reason causing loss of stability of subgrade soil is improper compaction of soil during
construction. Presence of excessive moisture at subgrade level without proper drainage control
also affects the stability of subgrade.

ii)Excessive stress application: Thickness of the pavement should be so designed, that it can
distribute the wheel load properly. If pavement thickness becomes less than that of the required
value, then it will result in failure of subgrade. Also if the wheel load applied on pavement is in
excess of design value, it will result in failure of subgrade.

2. FAILURE OF SUB-BASE OR BASE COURSE

There are 5 primary reasons behind failure of sub-base or base course as described below.

i)Inadequate stability or strength: Role of a sub-base or base course is to transform the wheel

VTUPulse.com
load from surface course or wearing course to the subgrade. Therefore the strength of the sub-
base or base course is always higher than that of subgrade. Strength of the sub-base or base
course can be achieved by taking following measures.

 Using good quality of aggregate

 Proper mix design
 Providing sufficient thickness
 Proper quality control

If there is any deviation occurs in any of the above mentioned factors, it will lead to failure of
pavement.

ii)Loss of binding action: When wheel load is repeatedly applied on road surface, it causes
internal movement of particles in the sub-base or base course. This results in relative movement
between surface course and sub-base or base course. In other word, instead of acting as whole,

Department of Civil Engg. GMIT 6|Page

PAVEMENT DESIGN (15CV833)

different layer acts separately. This is the cause of alligator or map cracking on bituminous
surface.

Therefore a layer of tack coat or prime coat is applied on top of the base course before placing
surface course. This creates a better bonding of these two layers.

iii)Loss of base course materials: When there is no wearing course or surface course on the base
course, or if the wearing course has completely worn out, that will result in loss of base course
material. This happens because of suction caused by the tyre and exposed base course materials.
Also loss of stone aggregate creates pot holes on surface course.

iv)Inadequate wearing course: If the thickness of wearing course is less, then water will find its
way to the base course causing damage to it.

Therefore it is essential to consider type, intensity and volume of traffic before deciding
thickness of wearing course.

VTUPulse.com
Use of inferior material: The materials to be used for construction of base course should be so
chosen in a manner so that it can resist the wheel load and weathering actions. Inferior quality of
material should not be used.

3. FAILURE OF WEARING COURSE

Wearing course or surface course is the layer having more strength than all the other pavement
layers. This is because the wheel load is directly applied on this layer. Along with the vertical
load, it has also to resist the abrading effect of wheel and weathering effect of climate.

Therefore design and construction of wearing course should be done properly. A pervious layer
of wearing course can damage all the underlying layers. The following measure should be
employed during design and construction of wearing courses

 Proper mix design

 Sufficient thickness
 Good quality of binder

Department of Civil Engg. GMIT 7|Page

PAVEMENT DESIGN (15CV833)

 Proper amount of binder

 Good quality aggregate

High degree of quality control should be employed during construction of wearing course.

Oxidation or aging of binder, also make the bituminous surface brittle and creates cracks on
pavement surface. This results in ingress of moisture to underlying layers and weakening of the
layers.

Causes for failure in flexible pavement

 Sudden increase in traffic loading especially on new roads where the design is based on
lesser traffic is a major cause of cracking.

 Provision of poor shoulders leads to edge failures.

 Provision of poor clayey subgrade results in corrugation at the surface and increase in
unevenness.

VTUPulse.com
 Poor drainage conditions especially during rainy season force the water to enter the
pavement from the sides as well as from the top surface.

Remedial / maintenance measures in flexible pavement

Remedial measures can be explain for following types of defects

1) Alligator cracking: this type of cracks can be filled with low viscosity binder.
Slurry seal or sand bituminous premix patching can be used to fill wide cracks.

2) Longitudinal cracking:

 fill cracks with bituminous binder

 A slurry seal or sand bituminous premix patching for wide cracks

 A fog-real if the cracks are fine and extended over larger area

3) Edge cracking

Department of Civil Engg. GMIT 8|Page

PAVEMENT DESIGN (15CV833)

 Improve the shoulder conditions and give lateral support to pavement

 Seal the cracks using low viscosity binder , a slurry seal, fog seal
4) Center cracking
These types of cracks can be sealed by slurry seal or fog seal

5)Rutting

 Fill the premix dense graded material and compact to the desired levels after
applying a prime coat
 If rutting is due to subgrade failure then excavation and rectification of subgrade
is done.

6)Potholes

Treatment is done by patch work or patch repairs. To fill pot holes with premix
dense graded materials are followed by compaction.

VTUPulse.com
Functional evaluation by visual inspection

Visual inspection is a method of inspecting the pavement surface for detecting and
assessing the amount and severity of various types of damage . visual survey conducted
from a moving vehicle to the more detailed survey that involves trained engineers and
technicians walking the entire length of the selected areas and measuring and mapping
out all distresses identified on the pavement surface, shoulders and drainage systems.
Recently, automated visual survey techniques have become more common and are being
adopted for distress surveys and pavement conditions evaluation.

Evaluation by unevenness measurement

The pavement unevenness may be measured using unevenness indicator, profilograph,

profilometer or roughometer. An equipment capable of integrating the unevenness of
pavement surface to a cumulative and that gives the unevenness index of the surface in
cm/km length of road may be called unevenness integrator. The paverment unevenness

Department of Civil Engg. GMIT 9|Page

PAVEMENT DESIGN (15CV833)

criteria to indicate the pavement riding qualities expressed in terms of unevenness index
recommended by hollaway is given in below table

In old pavements In new pavements

Unevenness index Riding quality

cm/km Unevenness index Riding quality
Below 95 Excellent cm/km
95 to 119 Good Below 90 Good
120 to 144 Fair 120 to 145 Fair
145 to 240 Poor Above 145 Poor
Above 240 Very poor

Structural evaluation by benkleman beam deflection method

VTUPulse.com
The benkleman beam measures the deflections under standard wheel load conditions.
Two kinds of deflection measurements are possible

1) Rebound deflection which is the recoverable deflection on the elastic deflection.

2) Residual deflection which is the non recoverable deflection .
The benkleman beam is a handy instrument which is most measuring deflection
pavements. It consists of a lesser 3.66m long pivoted 2.44m from the end carrying
the contact point which rests on the surface of the pavement.

The deflection of the pavement surface produced by the test load is transmitted to
other end of the beam where it is measured by a dial guage or recorder.
The movement at the dialgauge end of the beam is one half of that at the contact
point end. The load on the dual wheel can be in the range 2.7 to 4.1 tonnes

Procedure of measuring the rebound deflection is as follows

 Select 10points along the outer wheel path i.e., 60cm from the pavement
edge for each lane

Department of Civil Engg. GMIT 10 | P a g e

PAVEMENT DESIGN (15CV833)

 Bring the rear dual wheel assembly of the truck over the marked point
and insert the probe of the beam b/w the dual wheels so that the probe
is placed exactly over the point where the deflection is to be measured
 A standard wheel load of 4085kg is used for the test, the tyre pressure
being 5.6kg/cm2
 The dial gauge reading is noted initially (D0) in the position
 The truck is driven forward at a slow speed and dial gauge readings (D1
and D2) are taken when the truck stops at 2.7m and 9m from the
measuring point, and when the rate of recovery is equal to 0.0025mm per
minute
 Pavement temperature is recorded
 If D1-D2 < 0.0025mm, the actual rebound deflection is 2(D0-D2). If ,
however D1-D2> 0.0025mm, correction is needed for the vertical movement
of the front legs, the truth deflection is obtained by the formula

XT = XA + 2.91Y
Where ,
XT -- True pavement deflection
XA – Apparent pavement deflection
Y - vertical movement of the front legs.

VTUPulse.com
Structural evaluation by falling weight deflectometer

Falling weight deflectometer (FWD) is a instrument used to measure

the dynamic deflection which drops a weight of 150kg from a variable
height on to a spring system. This in turn transmits a load pulse of 28m
duration to the road surface through a circular plate. A maximum peak
load of 60kn develops a deflected that can be recorded by up to five
velocity sensitive transducers arrayed radially from the loaded area. The
equipment is carried on a single axle trailer. About 200measurements can
be taken daily.

Structural evaluation by ground penetrating radar (GPR)

GPR is a geophysical method that uses radar pulses to image the

subsurface. This nondestructive method uses electromagnetic radiation in
the microwave band of the radio spectrum and detects the reflects signals
from subsurface structures.
GPR have application in pavement evaluation including rock, soil and
structures.

Department of Civil Engg. GMIT 11 | P a g e

PAVEMENT DESIGN (15CV833)

GPR, a non-destructive testing method in which electromagnetic radiation in

the microwave band. The signals reflected back from the tested subsurface
structures helps to detect metamorphism, voids, cracks, fractures, splits in the
surface. In this non-destructive testing method, transmitting and receiving
antennas are used to record the signals. The transmitting antenna transmits
high frequency radiowave in the form of short pulses with penetrate in to
the ground or tested subsurface structures. On the other hand, the receiving
antenna record the signals reflected from the tested subsurface.

Design factors for runway pavements

 The area served by the airport must be able to generate and attract
the estimated passenger and cargo traffic
 Wind velocity, directions, frequency, turbulence have a major
influence on the airport operations and safety
 The altitude above mean sea level influences runway length
 Average temperature of the hottest month also influences the
runway length
 Visibility conditions, particularly frequency of low visibility
conditions due to fog, mist, rain, smoke, low, clouds, dust,

VTUPulse.com
storms….etc can affect aircraft landings and take-offs significantly
 Soil condition must be favorable
 The site selected should have a fairly level area with gentle
contours.
 The site should be free from features that attracts birds, which cause
bird hits.

Department of Civil Engg. GMIT 12 | P a g e