The Design of URC, Heavy Duty Slip-Formed Concrete Pavement for a Port Environment

The design of heavy duty pavements for ports and harbours is becoming an important concrete pavement application. This paper summarises Ove Arup & Partners’ experience in completing the design of heavy-duty container port pavements. The paper outlines a practical set of calculations complete with a standard, jointed unreinforced concrete (URC), pavement solution which may be employed within a container port environment. URC concrete pavements are jointed thin laminar structures which contain no steel reinforcement, their strength is derived from their tensile capacity. The paper suggests how an un-dowelled, slip-formed concrete construction technique might be applied to a container port pavement.