An Introduction to Highway Design

Name: An Introduction to Highway Design
Rating: 4.1 (19 reviews)

Everything you need to know about highway design and elements of vertical and horizontal highway curves

Created byLecture Factory

Last updated 4/2022

English

What you'll learn

Fundamentals of Highway Design and Vehicle Performance
Highway geometric design standards and elements
Horizontal and vertical alignment of highways
Vehicle stopping sight distance

Course content

2 sections • 6 lectures • 47m total length

Introduction and Overview7:24
In this video, we will go over the topics that will be covered in this course. You will also learn about the fundamental definition of "Transportation Engineering", different modes of transportation, and the design of highways in the context of road transportation.

Highway Vehicle Performance8:00
In this video, we will go over the performance of vehicles on the road and how it impacts the design of highways. We will review different resistance forces that are affecting vehicle movement on the roads. By the end of this chapter, you will be able to understand the equilibrium equation between the vehicle tractive force and the resistance forces.
Design Speed and Sight Distance7:49
In this video, we will review the fundamentals of vehicle motion and stopping. By the end of this chapter, you will be able to understand and calculate the stopping sight distance based on the vehicle speed and recommended values for deceleration and the driver's time of perception and reaction.
Geometric Design of Highways6:40
In this video, we will go over the fundamentals of highway geometric design and the standard guidelines for the design of highways and roads. By the end of this chapter, you will be able to identify highway interchange designs as well as standard practices for highway signs and markings.
Vertical Highway Alignment9:35
In this video, you will learn about the basic design elements of highway profile or vertical alignment including the design of vertical curves. We will go over the design equations and the process to calculate the elevation of each point on the curve. By the end of this chapter, you will be able to understand the stopping sight distance criteria for vertical curves and the steps to design the elements of the highway profiles.
Horizontal Highway Alignment8:28
In this video, we will go over the elements of the horizontal alignment of highways. We will review the design of circular horizontal curves as well as transition and spiral curves. By the end of this chapter, you will be able to understand the concept of superelevation and other design elements that are critical for the horizontal alignment of highways.

Requirements

No prior background in highway design in needed. However, basic understanding of geomery is helpful but not required.

Description

In this course, I will teach you the fundamentals of the highway and roadway design processes. You will learn about the basic elements of highway engineering including geometric design, cross-section, profile, and horizontal alignment. I will walk you through the step-by-step process for designing highway horizontal and vertical curves. We will also cover the safety aspects of the highway design process including the estimation of driver sight distance and determining the safe stopping distance. After taking this course, you will be able to design vertical and horizontal following the step-by-step processes explained in the instructional videos. You will also lean how to estimate the stopping sight distance for vehicles travelling on vertical and horizontal curves. Basic knowledge and understanding of geomtery is helpful but not required. This course is designed for all levels. Civil engineering students, design professionals, working civil engineers and transportation engineers can benefit from the contents of this course. For advanced highway design features, feel free to check back our courses again in the near future. The units of measurements for all the equations and formulas covered in this course are based on US Customary (Imperial) units that can be easily converted to metric system units.

What you will learn:

Fundamentals of Highway Design and Vehicle Performance
Highway geometric design standards and elements
Horizontal and vertical alignment of highways
Vehicle stopping sight distance

Who this course is for:

Anyone who is interested in learning about the design process for highways
Civil engineering students who want to advance their highway design knowledge
Urban planners, engineers and other industry professionals

An Introduction to Highway Design

What you'll learn

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Course content

Introduction1 lecture • 7min

Course Contents5 lectures • 41min

Requirements

Description

Who this course is for: