Question

In flexible pavement, _______ sub grade is more essential.

(a) well – compacted

(b) poorly-compacted

(c) low quality

(d) uniform

This question was addressed to me during an internship interview.

This intriguing question comes from Design of Flexible Pavements in chapter Design of Flexible & Rigid Pavement of Geotechnical Engineering II

Answer 1

The correct answer is (b) poorly-compacted

To elaborate: The design of flexible pavement is influenced by the strength of subgrade as the load transfer is based on grain-to-grain mechanism and due to this, the sub-grade must be well compacted in order to transfer the loads efficiently.