This unit provides student with the opportunity to attain advanced professional knowledge in road pavement construction. It will impart cognitive skills to think critically about the materials employed and the methods used to construct flexible and rigid pavements. The unit will also provide specialised technical and creative skills relevant to current and future professional practice. It will further develop the basic skills and knowledge imparted in the core units.

The unit considers the effectiveness of a pavement in distributing the wheel loads over the subgrade and discusses how it depends upon the relative rigidity of the pavement and subgrade. While pavement types span a broad spectrum, only the extreme types are considered for practical purposes. The types are “flexible” pavements that have a comparatively low flexural rigidity and concrete “rigid” pavements, which depend essentially on high stiffness for the distribution of axle loads.