Standards Development

Scope

Port pavement design traditionally focuses on container-handling facilities. This is arguably a modest proportion of the port pavement market and the following list of pavement types may apply:

• Container handling facilities. These involve extreme loadings at high frequency and as such differ considerably from both highways and airfields. Integrating increasing automation with pavements is a key topic.

• Gantry crane trackways. Experience suggests that not all pavement structures are well suited for gantry cranes and that specially designed trackways are sometimes needed.

• Container stacking using ground beams and gravel beds or other permeable infill.

• Trucking facilities. UK design guidance exists but has some important limitations.

• Areas such as automotive storage, empty container storage and trailer parking require large areas of light duty pavements, often on poor ground.

• Offshore wind turbine assembly areas. These are usually unsurfaced and require very heavy loads from tracked plant and high static loads from component storage. A degree of ride quality may also be required where self-propelled modular transporters (SPMTs) are used.

These types of pavements use different design and materials technologies from highways. A more wide-ranging document is proposed to cover importation limitations of highway design but also attract a wider readership.

Purpose

This standard is not part of the current BS 6349 standard suite.

Pavement engineering is the art of using low cost materials in large volume to create high performance ground-supported structures.

Port operations consist of the movement and marshalling of bulk goods to and from ship to shore. This is not possible without pavements.

Port expansion and upgrades are needed to support increasing global trade and changes of usage arising from decarbonisation.

However, UK and many international pavement design and materials specifications are concentrated on strategic highways whereas port pavements differ considerably.

Therefore proving clear recommendations and guidance on design, performance and materials of these different pavement types in a single document would be valuable and be relevant to a large number of UK and overseas applications. Such guidance doesn’t currently exist in UK or CEN standards and designers have to reconcile diverse sources of information available nationally and internationally.