Standard Designs for Concrete Roads

A manual on standard pavement design has recently been presented in The Netherlands. This manual deals with various types of roads constructed in plain concrete, composed as Publication no. 120 under the auspices of CROW (CROW = Centre for Research and Contract Standardization in Civil and Traffic Engineering). The manual refers to standard design solutions for public and private transport purposes, such as highways, (provincial) motorways, rural roads and estate roads. Attention is also paid to parking ) areas, bus lanes, petrol stations and cycle tracks. A simple and stepwise design procedure has been developed, based on five pavement classes. Each pavement class corresponds to the concrete slab itself as well as to related layer thicknesses and road materials for the base structure. Highlights of the manual include the detailing of cement concrete roads, such as joints (types, patterns, spacing, filling itiatetial), curved road parts, junctions (T and Yshaped) and connections to adjacent pavements. If road designs can not coincide with the conditions mentioned in the manual, then a tailor-made solution is needed. For this purpose design software has been developed: VENCON (for plain concrete roads), VENCIN and FLOOR (for concrete industrial floors / pavements).