Man At Work

Panic - Which type of road structure shall I use?

Post written by Perit Mark John Scicluna.

No Need to Panic

Designing roads is similar to designing any other structural element. First, one must determine the loads which the building is being subjected to, and according to these loads and other safety factors beams, columns and slabs are sized accordingly.

If the beam is subjected to loads which it has been designed to cater, it will perform satisfactorily. If the beam is subjected to loads considerably higher than the factored design loads, it wall inevitably fail.

Similarly, just as beams and columns are designed according to the loads they are designed to take, roads too as structural elements have to be designed according to the loads they are subjected to. The loads on roads depend on the number of vehicles passing over them.

Engineers usually use software or tables to size beams. Similarly road engineers have devised tables to assist them in the selection of the most appropriate road structure according to the number of equivalent 10t axles passes. This is known as the Road Structure Catalog and is shown in the chart below.

The Road Structure Catalog. Courtesy of Profs K. Muller.

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Post written by Perit Mark John Scicluna.

“Excellence is doing ordinary things extraordinarily well.” - John W. Gardner

The Republic of Malta, is an archipelago in the middle of the Mediterranean sea, c. 93km south of Sicily and c. 288 km east of Tunisia. As of the 2007 census, there are c. 410,290 inhabitants on the 300 sq. km island, making it the most densely populated country in the European Union (EU) and the seventh mostly populated country in the world with c. 1367 inhabitants / sq. km.

Birds eye view of the Maltese archipelago. Photo courtesy of Roberto Benetti.

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