Abstract
“Rural South Africa is characterised by poor infrastructure, large distances, dispersed demand and low incomes. There are also historical backlogs in service delivery, rural people also have poor access to basic social services and the economic mainstream [1].” Rural areas in South Africa are in need of better services regarding their existing infrastructure and maintenance. Some services includes the building, upgrading and maintenance of roads [1]. These roads have to be cost effective and yet efficient enough to carry the loads and traffic of vehicles that will use these roads. Roads are the backbone of rural well-being and advances rural economy in many ways. Without proper roads, accessibility becomes a huge problem and thus the rural economy suffers. Road building is subjective to many types of road construction machinery. These machines are used at various stages of the road construction process. Due to budget constraints that local municipalities encounter in rural areas, expensive machinery to build and maintain these roads are difficult or in some cases almost impossible to purchase. To alleviate the constraints rural budgets are facing, a fresh look has to be taken on the cost of road construction machinery. In this dissertation, focus is placed on the compaction part of the earth road building process and the ultimate design of a towed road roller...
M.Tech. (Mechanical Engineering)