Some visions for designing Mozambican low cost roads based on new alternative construction techniques

Abstract

Paper presented at the 33rd Annual Southern African Transport Conference 7-10 July 2014 "Leading Transport into the Future", CSIR International Convention Centre, Pretoria, South Africa.

Low cost road (LCR) initiatives are often concerned with supporting of the sustainable improvements of roads and creating the basic access to support poverty reduction initiatives in rural communities. In southern Africa low cost roads are those built with thin asphalt surfacings for low volume road traffic and also referred to as improved unpaved roads. LCR can be built or kept maintained cost effectively by using appropriate types of equipment suited to small-scale contractors. The objectives of this essay are to evaluate alternative pavement solutions for low volume roads. In order to evaluate the performance of different LCR, the KENLAYER program was used to evaluate the pavements. The deformation responses of unpaved and surface treated roads before and after surface treatments, at critical locations (bottom of base, top of selected subgrade and top of subgrade) are nearly the same; that means, the use of surface treatment over unpaved roads, does not increase the structural capacity, but it may only improve the riding quality and the drainage of the roads. The comparison of the cost of different LCR different pavement models (untreated, treated with ECOLOPAVI and treated with cement) found that the roads treated with ECOLOPAVI may cost less. Previous research has investigated the use of the ECOLOPAVI road treatment solution for improving roads and suggested, for consistency, further studies may be needed with an aim to investigate its use as an LCR alternative in Mozambican roads.