1.1.

Subgrade The support that a subgrade can give to a rigid pavement is one of the main factors which must be evaluated and taken into account when designing a concrete slab. The most important property of the sui grade which must be known is whether or not it will provide uniform support throughout the life of the pavement, then the slab can probably be laid directly on the prepared in situ soil and there will be no need to construct a sub-base. If the subgrade soil conditions are poor, then it will be necessary to interpose a sub-base between the slab and the subgrade. As discussed later, the thickness design of rigid pavements is still very much at the empirical stage. In Great Britain, for instance, as in most other countries of the world, "design" primarily consists of specifying a particular combination of slab and sub-base thickness according to the design traffic and existing subgrade conditions. From a structural aspect, the only information regarding the subgrade which is required for design purposes in Great Britain is classification identifying whether it is very stable, normal or susceptible to non-uniform movement. As defined in this classification, a heavy clay is one which has a plasticity index greater than 40 while a well-graded sandy gravel is non-plastic and has a California Bearing Ratio value greater than 60 when it is poorly drained. The subgrade classifications given above are of course very wide, and numerous soils of varying stabilities can be included in each category. For instance, this system allows all well-drained soils having CBR values between 4 and 59 or poorly-drained soils having CBR values between 3 and 19 to be classified as normal soils. In practice, however, these wide groupings are generally quite adequate for design purposes. This can be explained by considering the manner in which a concrete slab distributes the wheel loads applied by the traffic. Concrete used in road construction is normally required to have a crushing strength of more than 4000 lb/in2 after 28 days. This material usually has a flexural strength of more than 450 lb/in2, which indicates that it has significant beam strength. Its modulus of elasticity is in the order of 5x106 lb/in2; this means that the concrete slab has a high degree of rigidity. Because of these properties of rigidity and beam strength, the wheel loads which are applied to a concrete slab are distributed over a large area and so deflections are small and unit pressures on the subgrade very low. The important thing to note that, for instance, an applied unit pressure of 106 lb/in2 could be reduced to subgrade pressure of only 3 to 7 lb/in2 by the slab distributing the applied load over an area of the subgrade more than 20 ft in diameter.! Thus it can be seen that concrete pavements do not necessary require strong subgrades; what is more important is that a subgrade should provide uniform support, and continue to do so throughout its design life.

1.2. Sub-base As has been established, a loaded concrete slab transmits very-low unit pressures to the subgrade and so it is not normally necessary in rigid pavements to utilize the thick subbase which is so often fundamental to the structural integrity of a flexible pavement. Where they are used beneath concrete road slabs, sub-bases are in fact rarely more than 6 in. thick. British practice with respect to sub-base re commends zero thickness for subbaae for a very stable subgrade, 3 in. for normal subgrade and 3 to 6 in. for the subgradeg which are very sus ceptible to non-uniform movement or for the parts of the roads with a water-table rising to within 2 ft of the slab. The function of a sub-base in a rigid pavement is not so much to increase the structural stability of the pavement as to counteract or correct unsatisfactory subgrade conditions which could lead to nonuniform support for the slab. Particular instances where sub-bases are used to provide uniform, stable and permanent support for concrete slabs are when damage is anticipated from one or more of the following causes: 1. Frost action 2. Poor drainage 3. Mud-pumping 4. Swell and shrinkage of high-volume-change soils. 5. Construction traffic