Ouagadougou: Hubert Bowendsom Tapsoba analyzed, to obtain his design engineer diploma in civil engineering, the method of the Experimental Center for Research and Studies of Building and Public Works (CEBTP) for the structural design of roadways in Burkina. He proposes adapting it to the country’s climatic realities in order to guarantee sustainable road infrastructure.
According to the civil engineering design engineer of the National School of Public Works of Burkina, Hubert Bowendsom Tapsoba, the CEBTP method used for road construction presents significant inadequacies, which justifies the need to adapt it to the Burkinabe context to obtain quality roads.
‘The CEBTP method, which is the most used in sub-Saharan Africa, despite its strengths, does not integrate a certain number of parameters, which leads to early deterioration of road infrastructure in our country,’ declared the design engineer.
According to Mr. Tapsoba, despite the natural causes of pavement damage, the parameters used by the CEBTP meth
od do not guarantee the lifespan of the pavements due to heavy traffic.
The design engineer criticizes the method for not integrating the ‘mechanical characteristics and behavior of materials’.
According to the applicant, this method from the Experimental Center for Research and Studies in Building and Public Works ‘underestimates traffic by taking into account only 30% of total traffic as heavy goods vehicles and an overload of 10% to propose the traffic class’, which does not make it possible to assess the real value of traffic aggressiveness.
He also points out that the method does not take into account the stiffness moduli or elastic moduli of the materials, which should allow a road structure to return to its initial shape after the passage of an axle.
To overcome these various shortcomings, the specialist suggests using the Alizé software, which makes it possible to check, size and correct the road structures proposed by said method.
According to the engineer, this application takes into account pa
rameters such as traffic and its aggressiveness, the quality of the materials and the supporting soil, the admissible stresses and the stresses induced in the road layers.
‘This software also integrates the temperature into its sizing,’ he explained.
Mr. Tapsoba also recommended that his school proposes suitable methods and software that take into account the quality and behavior of materials, as well as the climatic and environmental parameters of our country in road construction studies.
Likewise, it recommends that the State use the CEBTP method for the design of light traffic roads.
For the dissertation director, Lazare Comberé, also a civil engineer and expert in infrastructure and transport, the lifespan of roads is not only linked to implementation, but can also be a sizing problem in the road design due to the failure to take into account certain properties of the materials and especially the real characteristics linked to the operation of the road structure.
According to Mr. Comberé, this study
highlights the need to revisit and improve design and sizing methods in order to reduce early deterioration of our road infrastructure.
Finally, he invited the first state officials to trust these new engineers from the Ministry of Infrastructure in the various design studies for sustainable road infrastructure.
The work was deemed admissible by a jury composed of Professor Florent Keno (president), Schadrack Nebié (examinator) and the dissertation director, who awarded it a score of 18 out of 20.
Like Hubert Tapsoba, several students ‘brilliantly’ defended their dissertations this Wednesday, August 14 at the National School of Public Works of Burkina.
Source : Burkina Information Agency
