HIGHWAY PROJECT

 HIGHWAY PROJECT

In general a highway project involves an engineer to plan, design and construct either a road network ( new roads linking each other ) or a simple road link. 

Other than this a project can also include redesigning or relinking older projects.

STAGES OF HIGHWAY PROJECT 

A highway project consists of the following stages:

• route selection, finalization of highway alignment and geometric design details
• collecting construction materials and testing them 
• carrying out the construction along with necessary quality checks

Route Selection

Selection of a project location involves going over the geographic, topographic and other features of the desired area. Following that, special care should be given to creating room for renovation and relocation if required in future. With the location selected, the plans and drawings for the project are prepared. 

Materials and Testing 

With the location decided, soil samples are collected from the desired route and tested in laboratory to check their properties are ideal to carry out construction. Since highway construction involves both pavement and embankment slopes, it is very important to carry out soil testing to check it's ability to withstand the loads from all kinds of traffic. 

However keeping the desired quality in mind, efforts should also be made to make the construction as cost effective as possible. 

NOTE: In India, the CBR method has been recommended by the India Roads Congress for designing the thickness of flexible pavements. 

Carrying out Construction

The construction is divided into two steps

• earth work
• pavement construction

Earth work consists of excavation of land and construction of embankments. During excavation, extra care must be given to provide enough space for construction of slopes and installation of drainage alongside the highway. For points where embankment is high, it is important to give special care to that particular foundation and to the slope following. 

Pavement construction eventually takes over starting with preparation of subgrade and construction of sub-base, base and surface courses of pavement.