ROAD PAVEMENT FORENSIC ENGINEERING
Structural and Functional Road Pavements are the lifeblood of the socio-economic development of any country, or region. It is at the heart of economic well being of the business and manufacturing sector but at the same time is essential to municipal service delivery through providing access to essential services such as health and education. According to SANRAL, the asset value of roads in South Africa is in the order of R2 trillion. Approximately 20 % of the 750 000 km of roads in South Africa is paved. There is a huge potential providing all weather road surfaces in the country for most of the roads. This vital asset needs expansion, protection and regular maintenance for South Africa to achieve the vision of the National Development Plan (NDP). There are a number of challenges with road pavements in South Africa though. These include:
- the current poor state of the secondary and tertiary road network (according to the SAICE 2017 Infrastructure Report Card, https://saice.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/SAICE-IRC-2017.pdf
- the ever-increasing truck axle loading of the road system (it is estimated that the National Road 3 (N3) has, in the last three years, carried the same loading as in the previous 20 years);
- the impacts of climate change on the structural and functional performance of roads and their longevity;
- the increasing scarcity of good quality road construction materials;
- the emphasis on the use of marginal and waste materials in road construction;
- the shortage of qualified road pavement engineers in South Africa, and
- lack of sufficient funding to maintain and expand the road pavement network.
To address these challenges South Africa will have to find appropriate solutions for materials and road design methods to ensure optimal structural and functional performance of roads at optimal cost.
Specialized Road Pavement Forensic Engineering investigations go a long way to address construction problems, and mainly structural road pavement performance over time. The are many premature failures such as permanent deformation (rutting) and cracking that needs urgent attention, and could be solved in time.
For further information and related Engineering assistance see also http://www.perc.co.za/