Experience in statistical quality control for road construction in South Africa

Abstract

For some time road engineers have been concerned that the variability inherent in road construction materials and their sampling and testing has not been logically and consistently catered for in the road construction process or in construction control. Over the last few years various process and acceptance control plans for road construction, based on stochastic procedure, have been developed, both in South Africa and abroad. In this paper the first large-scale South African application of statistically oriented acceptance control procedures to a major road construction project is examined and it is concluded that such procedures promise to be of benefit to both the client and the contractor.