Mechanistic-empirical pavement design has been one of the primary pavement design tools in South Africa since the early 1970's. Although some improvements were made to the original method over the years, the main components of the current method are still based on research done during the 1970's and 1980's. The problems associated with the current method were highlighted at the Conference for Asphalt Pavements in Southern Africa held in 2004. These problems were again raised at the subsequent Roads Pavement Forum meeting held in May 2005 and a workgroup appointed to initiate the revision of the South African Road Design System. The activities of the workgroup were completed in November 2006 and culminated in a set of project briefs that provided the foundation for subsequent research and development work. The second phase of the research project was initiated in April 2007 with the appointment of project teams to develop inception reports for each of the research areas identified by the workgroup. The third phase of the research project commenced in September 2008 to be supplemented in 2011 with additional research work on seal design, rigid and block pavements.
The research project delivered the technical content that is at the core of the SAHDS. Documentation from the research project can be found under the
documentation
section of this website.
