A Sustainable Road Construction Material for Low Volume Roads

Abstract

The need of spending highway investments more efficiently is greater than ever before, due to escalation of prices of the conventional paving materials (asphalt, concrete). Hence, the road designers are in the verge of using alternative materials for the road construction which brings sustainable living conditions. Thus, focus has been on “Concrete Block Paving (CBP)”, a road construction methodology which is based on ancient road construction technology “Stone Paving”. In general, the applications of CBP are categorized according to the traffic condition as non-traffic, light traffic, medium traffic and heavy & very heavy traffic. The results of the study indicate that the life cycle cost of CBP is lower than the other paving materials although the initial construction cost is slightly high. When the performance of the three types of paving materials are evaluated,\ in addition to the low life cycle cost, the ability of accommodating and maintaining utility services, thermal comfort, aesthetic appearance and environmentally friendly behaviour can be highlighted as the key advantages of CBP