Stone Pavement: types, meaning | Stone driveway
What is stone pavement?
The form of paving in which the stones are laid flat with their vertical faces carefully dressed to give fine joints filled with a binder is known as stone pavement.
It may either be stone block pavement or stone sett pavement. In the case of stone block pavement, the stone blocks are used in the pavement construction. The stone sett pavement is paving like stone block pavement except that the rectangular stone setts which are stones of sizes less than the stone blocks are laid in regular courses.
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It is understood that the stone sett pavement is one of the earliest types of surfacing. Though John Macadam (1756-1836) was against this type of pavement, Thomas Telford (1757-1834) favored this type of pavement, and stone setts were used by him in the following three ways:
- over the entire width of the road;
- in center only; and
- along both sides of the road.
The stone sett pavement offers the following advantages:
- It has the capacity to withstand high traffic.
- It is free from noise in case of tyred traffic.
- It is tough and durable.
- It is useful for laying on gradients for foothold.
The three serious drawbacks of the stone sett pavement are its high initial cost; the surface becoming slippery after being worn out or affected by weather changes; and the surface being non-resilient gives some discomfort to the occupants of vehicles.
The stone blocks are usually of 175 mm to 250 mm length, 75 mm to 100 mm width and 125 mm height. They are generally prepared from medium grained granite so that a fairly hard and durable wearing surface is provided and at the same time, the Cutting and dressing to the required size are not difficult.
Sometimes the stone blocks of good quality sandstones, trap or limestone are also used. But the choice of a particular variety of stone will Primarily be governed by its local availability.
For the construction of stone pavement, the foundation layer of concrete having 150 mm to 200 mm thickness is laid with the required grade and camber on the prepared subgrade. Over this foundation layer, the sand layer of 25 mm thickness is spread to serve as a cushioning between the foundation and the surfacing of stone blocks.
On both the edges of the carriageway, the edging of stone or plain cement concrete blocks is first constructed to protect the paving from the danger of dislocation caused by The stone blocks are dressed on all faces except the bottom which is left.
These stones are laid between edgings on the sand layer to form the staggered joints, the thickness of vertical joints being 3 mm to 9.

The joints are filled with 3 mm size stone chips up to of their depth and are then grouted with In some cases, the upper depth of the joints is filled with hot Fig. 2 shows the Section of a typical stone block pavement.
The stone pavement possesses high strength and hence, it adopted for roads having very heavy traffic like those leading dockyard or railway goods yard. Even if such roads were built of concrete, they would have been badly cut up under the severe traffic.
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Stone is a material that has a wide purpose. Besides that, it’s also best to use in masonry construction. Through this material, you can have a wall, stairs, etc on your property.
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