Optimum pavement design for Colombo South Container Terminal

Project

Yang Shu, BSc, AE, CCCC;1 Amila Chaminda Wickrama Arachchi, BSc;2 James Goh
King Seng, MEng, PE, MHKIE3; Chen Laijin, Bsc, SE, CCCC4
1
Design Engineer, Level 32, East Tower of World Trade Center, Echelon Square
Colombo 01, Sri Lanka; E-mail: yangshu@zjqhr.com
2
Design Engineer, Level 32, East Tower of World Trade Center, Echelon Square
Colombo 01, Sri Lanka; E-mail: amilacwic@yahoo.com
3
Technical Director, Level 32, East Tower of World Trade Center, Echelon Square
Colombo 01, Sri Lanka; E-mail: jamesksgoh@gmail.com
4
Design Manager, Level 32, East Tower of World Trade Center, Echelon Square
Colombo 01, Sri Lanka; E-mail: chenlaijin@163.com

Abstract
The Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) has embarked on a $375.1-million expansion
program at the Port of Colombo, Sri Lanka to cater to the increasing demand of services in
the international shipping industry.
China Harbor Engineering Company has been accepted by Sri Lanka Port Authority
(SLPA) as the Design and Built Contractor. During the Conceptual Study Stage the specified
pavement type for the container yard have no difference between the container pedestal and
the area in-between the pedestals. However, the cost of the initial design exceeded the
contractor’s budget. To solve this problem, our design team is looking for the optimal
pavement structure, which minimizes the cost while meeting all the engineering constraints.
This paper describes the optimum design for the loaded container stack and RTG runway
foundation. Traffic demand on truck and passing lanes was evaluated based on estimated
throughput including the effects of container type, size, block size and dwell time. The design
followed the 2007 Structural Design of Heavy duty pavements for ports and other industries
(4th edition). Finite element modeling was used to determine design chart specified in the
guideline.
The final solution should further consider the construction cost, construction period,
maintenance, Performance and Durability as well as operation management.

Keywords: Optimum Design; Container Yard; Heavy Duty Pavement.

1. Introduction

In 2011, the government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) has embarked on a $375.1-million

expansion program at the Port of Colombo, Sri Lanka to cater to the increasing demand of
services in the international shipping industry. The main features of the project, known as the
“Colombo South Container Terminal Project,” were the design and construction of a 1200m

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long quay structure with a minimum alongside water depth of -18.0m LWOST and
development of approximately 60 hectares of container yard (CY) as well as the Buildings
and relevant Utilities. China Harbor Engineering Company has been accepted by Sri Lanka
Port Authority (SLPA) as the Design and Built Contractor.
The detailed geological subsurface profiles of the Geotechnical Investigation Final
Interpretative Report (Construction Stage) shows the main subsurface soil is medium to
coarse sand and other harder layers. Only the southwest is surcharged with stone which is laid
by adjacent project. The Reclamation Foundation has been treated with the vibro-
densification and the bearing capacity at the final surface level after ground improvement has
achieved 150 kPa after the improvement.
At the conceptual design stage it was considered uniform pavement section all over the
stockyard. But the operational layout clearly defined the loaded corners and those were fixed
during the service life of the terminal. Hence there was an opportunity to consider two
different types of pavement structures for loaded/unloaded areas.
However, the cost of the initial design exceeded the contractor’s budget. To solve this
problem, our design team was looking for the optimal pavement structure, which minimizes
the cost while meeting all the engineering constraints. The structure form is proposed as
below:
1. Sub-base (If required) of unbound crushed rock
2. Base course of cement bound material with priming/geotextile
3. Concrete block pavement

2. Pavement of Container Yard

2.1. Definition of requirement

For the general design requirement of heavy-duty pavement, there are four primary
conditions.
1. Low cost of construction.
2. Low maintenance costs.
3. High reliability.
4. Known design life.
Although no material meets all of these requirements perfectly, it is believed by the
engineers that a concrete block surfacing with a cement bound base is the optimum solution
available today.
A successful design must take the following parameters into account:
1. Port layout and operation
2. Future uses and development
3. Type of trafficking (vehicle speeds; wheel loadings; number of loadings)
4. Static loading (point loads; impact loading)
5. Surface pollution (hydraulic oil; de-icing salts)

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 6. Strength of subgrade
7. Anticipated settlement (short term; long term)
8. Climate
This list is by no means exhaustive.
With so many design parameters it is virtually impossible to put forward a comprehensive
design method which would cover all plausible conditions; the graphical and tabular
presentation required would be formidable.
In this paper The Structural Design of Heavy Duty Pavements for Ports and other
Industries by INTERPAVE (2007) (hereafter refer to SDHDP) is referred to set up the design
guide..

2.2. Pavement Design and Analysis Method

Pavement design has been, indeed still is, empirical. The variability of the materials
making up the pavement structure has, until recently, made it difficult to develop a suitable
analytical design philosophy. However, the wide use of computers has brought a semi-
analytical approach to pavement design in the past few years, and this has also made it
possible to extend the empirical design rules beyond their original bounds of development to
include motorways and heavy duty pavements.
The most successful of these analysis techniques has been the multi-layer elastic model.
Several programs of varying degrees of complexity have been developed, and this work uses
a simplified analytical technique developed by Ullidtz and Peattie. This has been adopted
because of its speed of execution, particularly when several hundred pavement structures are
being analyzed, as is the case for each design chart.
The pavement model is shown in Figure 1. The contact area between the tyre and the
pavement is assumed to be circular with a contact stress equal to the tyre pressure. The
analysis program gives the vertical stress and strain, and the radial strain at each interface.
Two design criteria have been established and generally applied to pavements:
1. Fatigue cracking of base material.
2. Progressive vertical deformation of the subgrade.
Thus the two design parameters in the structure are the tensile radial strain at the bottom of
the bound layer and the compressive vertical strain at the top of the subgrade. Relationships
have been developed between these two strains and the design life, i.e. the number of load
repetitions to failure of the pavement.

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 Figure 1. The pavement model (ER2 is the critical strain in the base. EZ4 is the critical compressive strain in
the sub-base).

Thus with computer analysis it is possible to establish these critical strains for a whole
range of pavement structures and plot the results as a design chart. In order to produce the
design charts, pavements have been analyzed using the finite element method in which a
model was developed to represent all components of a pavement. Elastic properties and
Poisson’s Ratio values were chosen to describe the behaviour of each pavement component.
Fatigue is taken into account by defining limiting stresses to which the pavement can be
exposed for one load pass and then by reducing those stresses to account for the fatigue effect
of multiple load repetitions.
Interalia, trafficking tests of block pavements have established that:
1. In general block pavements tend to perform in a manner which is qualitatively similar to
conventional flexible pavements save for a few crucial differences in behaviour listed below.
2. An increase in block thickness within the range from 60 to 100 mm is beneficial to
pavement performance.
3. Under trafficking, block pavements tend to develop interlock. This is manifest as
increases in the load-spreading ability of the blocks and reductions in the rate of accumulation
of deformation
4. Once a block pavement constructed on a granular base course becomes fully interlocked
it attains a stable equilibrium condition which is unaffected by either the amount of traffic or
by the magnitude of the wheel load (within the range from 24 to 70 kN)
5. Once interlock has developed the blocks act as a structural layer rather than merely as a
wearing course.
6. Block pavements incorporating a granular base can typically exhibit elastic deflections
between 1 and 2 mm while at the same time. yielding only small rutting deformations.

3. Design Example

The optimum design work scope of the pavement design of the container stockyard
includes the container stack foundations, support, pavement and the like in the container stock
of the terminal. All container yard roadways are excluded in this design package, the
container stockyard pavement, foundation, and support design are grouped as follows:
1. RTGC runway
2. Trailer lane
3. Loaded container stockyard
4. Empty container stockyard
This paper will describe the design method used for loaded container and the RTGC
runway as examples.

3.1. Container Stockyard Layout

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 The layout and dimensions of the container stacks and empty container stacking areas are
shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Container Stockyard Layout

The container yard is divided into four main blocks surrounded by internal roads and the
all container stacks will be oriented horizontally and parallel to the quay. Each block of
stacking area will contain 10 stacks. The paving & surfacing container yard cross-section is
shown in Figure 3 & Figure 4.

Figure 3. The paving & surfacing container yard cross-section

Figure 4. The paving & surfacing container yard cross-section

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3.2. Loaded Container Pavement Design

3.2.1. Loaded Container Stack Arrangement:

Each stack will be laid out for stacking loaded containers six rows wide and six high under
one high-cube over six high-cube tiers spanning six rows plus a tractor lane. Reefer
containers will be stacked five high. The stacking layout will also allow a minimum of 400
mm between the ends of all boxes, and 400 mm between the sides of boxes to be handled by
RTGCs. The arrangement of the loaded container stockyard is shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5. The paving & surfacing container yard cross-section detail

3.2.2. Container Yard Design Criteria

The container yard paving and container supports will be designed, as minimum
requirements, to support loads from containers to suit the stacking configuration.
Container stack foundations shall be designed for container stacking using recommended
loads and stacking height reduction coefficients from "The Structural Design of Heavy Duty
Pavements for Ports and Other Industries 4th Edition " and the maximum stacking height of
the yard equipment. The UDL is calculated on the basis of 20 ft long containers with a rated
load of 25 tonnes and 100mm clearance between containers. The corner load of one container
is based on 40 ft long containers with a rated load of 30 tonnes.
TABLE 1. CONTAINER LOAD
Corner load
Reduction Equivalent
Stack height for single
coefficient UDL kN/m2
stacks kN
1 1.0 16 75
2 0.9 28 135
3 0.8 37 180
4 0.7 44 210
5 0.6 47 225
(Corner castings assumed to measure 178 mm x 162 mm)

3.2.3. Design Method:

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 According to clause 8.9 of the structural design of heavy duty pavement for port and other
industries, corner castings assumed to measure of 178mm x 162mm is adopted.
In this design, only static loads from container corner casting feet are applied on the
pavement, no traffic loading is considered in the design of loaded container stockyard
pavement.
The static loads from container up to six high is taken from Table 2, considered laden
maximum gross weight reduction of 40% is used for the design.
TABLE 2. PAVEMENT LOAD FROM STACKING FULL CONTAINERS
Stack Reduction in Contact Load on Pavement(kN) for each stacking arrangement
height Gross Weight Stress(N/mm2) Singly Rows Stocks
1 0 2.59 76.2 152.4 304.8
2 10% 4.67 137.2 274.3 548.6
3 20% 6.23 182.9 365.8 731.5
4 30% 7.27 213.4 426.7 853.4
5 40% 7.78 228.6 457.2 914.4
6 40% 9.33 274.3 548.6 1097
7 40% 10.9 320.0 640.0 1280
8 40% 12.5 365.8 731.6 1463

Figure 6. Container base with CBM concrete strips

As per Table 2 Load on Pavement is 1097kN corresponding to 6 stack height from the
design chart and the required base thickness of C8/10 material is proposed to be 605 mm.
Typical cross sections of initial proposal and the optimum design are shown in Figure 7 &
Figure 8.

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 Figure 7. Typical Cross section for load container pavement of initial proposal

Figure 8. Typical Cross section for load container pavement of optimum design

3.3. RTG RUNWAY Design

Design of the RTGC runways is consistent with BS 8110 and with reference to SDHDP.
RTG runways is designed for 40 tonnes nominal capacity RTG. The runways is designed
for the loads applied by stationary, loaded RTGs (12,000 loadings per annum), and by
unladen, travelling RTGCs (for 65,000 passes per annum).

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3.3.1. Design consideration and input parameter

The design life is 60 years and the design conditions are specified as Table 3.
TABLE 3. DESIGN CONDITION FOR RUNWAY PAVEMENT
Serial No. Design condition
1 Dynamic condition + loaded condition
2 Dynamic condition + unladen condition
3 Static condition + loaded condition
4 Static condition + unladen condition

The design input parameter that influent the runway foundation design are:
1. Material type of runway beam
 Concrete-C40(20)
 High yield Steel reinforcement, fy=460
2. Traffic loading
 No. of Passes per annum for laden condition is 12,000 loadings
 No. of Passes per annum for laden condition is 65,000 loadings
3. Crane Details
 No. of tyres is 8
 Configuration parameter of RTG is as Figure 8 and Figure 9.
 Nominal Capacity of RTG is 40 tons
 Maximum Tyre Load of the RTG crane is 23 tons
 The weight of unladen RTGC is 154 tons

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 Figure 9. Configuration Parameter of RTG

3.3.2. The Design Procedure

The design procedure of due runway foundation and runway beam (take dynamic condition
as example) can be summarized as follows：
1. Decide on the design life of the foundation which is 60 years
2. Estimate the axel passes over the life period, 3.744 Millions
3. Estimate CBR of the subgrade which is 5%.
4. Based on effective CBR of subgrade, the effective depth of wheel load can be
approximated from the following formula.
Effective depth=3003√35000/(CBR10) (1)
5. The proximity effect can be calculated by Table 19 of SDHDP and the proximity factor
is supposed to be 1.28.
6. Choose a dynamic factor. The effects of dynamic loading induced by cornering,
accelerating, braking and surface unevenness are taken into account by the factor, fd is 1.2
(Braking on uneven surface)
7. Reaction calculations of RTG were carried out by static equilibrium shown on Figure 9,
ie. W1=80.32t, W2=113.68t. Therefore, the maximum tyre pressure is supposed to be
Tstatic=W2/4=28.4t
8. Considering the most adverse loading case of braking on uneven surface and apply the
appropriate dynamic factor of ±20% to the wheels at the extreme front and rear, applying the
increase in load to the front wheels and the decrease to the rear wheels. The inner wheel loads
need to be similarly adjusted but using a factor lower than ±20% determined by considering
relative distances from the wheels’ center line. The load distribution are as below
TABLE 4. DYNAMIC TYRE PRESSURE
Wheel No. Dynamic tyre pressure
1 34.1ton
2 31.9ton
3 25.0ton

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 Wheel No. Dynamic tyre pressure
4 22.7ton

9. For the maximum wheel load effect of loaded condition, SEWL, which means the Single
Equivalent Wheel Load is 428.52kN.
10. With one pass of the RTGC 4 Nos of wheels passes which has loads of different
magnitude. This effect to be simulated as a fraction of SEWL & finally taken into account as
an increment of repetitions. The simulative factor shall be denoted as below
Simulative factor=(P/SEWL)3.75 (2)
Where P is the respective wheel load effect.
11. Repeat step 7 to 10 for all the design conditions to figure out the critical design
requirement. In term of design chart and Table 13 of HDP the required runway foundation can
be proposed as below.
TABLE 5. PROPOSED RUNWAY FOUNDATION
Pavement Proposed thickness
C-40 Concrete 350mm
C-15 Bedding 75mm
Stabilized base 150mm
Sub Base 150mm

12. RTG runway beams were analyzed as long RC beams supported on springs assuming a
subgrade reaction modulus, ks, of 22500 kN/m2/m. The beams were subjected to loads
associated with RTG cranes and applied as either static (operating) or moving loads. Figure
10 shows pressure distribution of RTG below the axels.

Figure 10. Pressure distribution Below the Axels

RTG runway beam are 1.5 meter wide and 0.35 meter deep with control (doweled) joints
spaced every 11.5 meters. A typical cross-section is shown in Figure 11.

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 Figure 11. RTG runway detail
4. Conclusion
The feasible solution may not be decided purely on the initial construction cost. We should
further consider the construction period, Maintenance work, Performance and Durability of
each proposal. What’s more, the selection of design proposal is also related to the operation
management.
The summarized proposal estimate which is intended to provide comparable cost and
technical information for the alternative design is as Table 6
TABLE 6. PROPOSED RUNWAY FOUNDATION
Comparison Optimized Proposal
Initial Proposal
Description
Cost approximately 55,000,000USD approximately
Comparison 39,000,000USD
Durability More than 100 years More than 60 years
Performance Flat and level, Flexibility of the pavement is Flat and level, Flexibility of the
less. There is little uneven settlement. pavement is high. The significant
uneven settlement.
Construction Huge construction quantities, there is not too Requires regular maintenance
and much maintenance work during operation after putting into service, but it
Maintenance period but it’s difficult to do once it’s can be easily accomplished.
damaged.

The cost of initial proposal is quite high and the flexibility of the foundation is not good
enough. We can employ the initial proposal with the support of sufficient funding. But with
respect to the cost of the project and the general performance, the optimized proposal
prevails.

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5. References

5.1. Journal Article

[1] M.N.S. Hadi and Y. Arfiadi. Computers and Structures. 79, 1617 (2001)

[2] Zhao Jianchao. Port & Waterway Engineering. 11, 46 (2004)

5.2. Book
[3] YANG H. HUANG, Editor, Pavement Analysis and Design, Published by Pearson Education, New
Jersey (2004)

[4] John Knapton, Editor, The Structural design of heavy duty pavements for ports and other industries,
Published by Interpave, Leicester (2007)

5.3. Conference Proceedings

[5] Carlos E. Ospina and Viswanath K. Kumar, Editors. Ports 2010: Building on the Past, Respecting
the Future. Proceedings of the 12th Triannual International Conference on Ports, (2010) October 912-
921; Florida, United States

[6] S.D. Barber and J. Knapton, Editors. Structural Design. Proceedings of the 1st International
Conference on Concrete Block Pavement, (1980) September 141-149; Newcastle, British

[7] Joao Santos and Adelino Ferreira, Editors. Procedia: Social and Behavioral Sciences. Proceedings
of the 5th International Congress on Sustainability of Road Infrastructures, (2012) October 1184-1193;
Rome, Italy

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