Structural Design of Concrete Block Pavements

Several methods for designing concrete block pavements (CBP) for roads and streets are presently available. All recognize the need to consider the subgrade soil, paving materials, environment, and anticipated traffic. There are a number of limitations associated with each, including inadequate characterization of the subgrade soil and paving materials, lack of pavement performance prediction capabilities, and inability to specify desired pavement failure and reliability level. This paper presents a method to overcome these limitations. The AASHTO flexible pavement design methodology is used as the fundamental framework for developing this procedure. Several modifications allow for the characterization of concrete block pavers, as well as for various levels of engineering analysis, depending on the availability of information. The proposed design methodology is demonstrated through a numerical example.