In Limerick, pavement failures don't announce themselves with a bang, they start as a slight depression after a wet winter, then a pothole by March. The underlying culprit is almost always the same: the soft, silty alluvium that lines the River Shannon floodplain. Designing a flexible pavement here means accepting that the subgrade is rarely uniform and moisture conditions shift dramatically between seasons. We've seen schemes on the Dock Road where untreated subgrade led to deformation within two years. Combining a detailed CBR road investigation with proper drainage design isn't optional, it's the minimum standard for longevity. Our approach integrates the TII (Transport Infrastructure Ireland) design manual with site-specific data to build a pavement structure that works with Limerick's ground, not against it.
A pavement's life is decided in the first 300mm below the formation level, long before the first truck rolls over it.
