Expert Paving Design & Layout

Pavement engineering is a branch of civil engineering. It involves knowledge of soils, hydraulics and other materials, and how these materials react to load or weight. Some pavement structures are very specialised. Major football grounds, for example, have very carefully designed pavements that drain easily to stop them getting too muddy. At the same time, they need enough ‘give’ to limit injuries to players. A road pavement is a set of layers of materials, placed on the natural ground. The natural ground is also known as the ‘subgrade’. The pavement layers usually work to spread out the load of a person or vehicle. A vehicle that would get bogged down in muddy soil can cross the same soil easily when there’s pavement in between. The challenge is to use the right materials for each layer so that the stress caused by vehicles is so small by the time it gets to soil level that the soil hardly notices a vehicle is crossing.