The Port of Newark-Elizabeth handles over 7 million TEUs annually, generating immense stress on adjacent road infrastructure. Designing rigid pavement here means accounting for continuous container truck traffic, not just intermittent passenger vehicles. The local geology complicates things further: deposits of varved silt and clay from glacial Lake Passaic dominate the subgrade, and their moisture sensitivity responds poorly to Newark's 47 inches of average annual precipitation. An approach rooted purely in standard catalog sections fails quickly under these combined loads. Instead, we integrate subgrade characterization through test pits and in-situ permeability measurements to quantify drainage capacity before selecting slab thickness. The goal is a pavement section that resists pumping, faulting, and mid-panel cracking over a design life that often exceeds 30 years for port-access corridors.
A rigid pavement section in Newark without a drainage plan is a premature failure waiting to happen — the clay subgrade won't forgive standing water under the slab.
