Cork sits on a floodplain of the River Lee, much of its city centre built on alluvial silts and soft marls that complicate any road project. With over 220,000 people in the metropolitan area, the demand for durable pavements is constant, and that durability starts with the subgrade. The laboratory CBR test gives us a direct measurement of the soil's bearing capacity, a value that dictates pavement thickness, capping layer requirements, and aggregate selection. Our team runs the test inside a temperature-controlled chamber, compacting remoulded specimens at optimum moisture content to mirror site conditions as closely as possible. For sites east of the city on the more gravelly limestone tills, we often pair the CBR data with a grain-size analysis to confirm the fines content before finalising the pavement design, a step that avoids over-design and keeps the construction budget in check.
A soaked CBR value below 2% is not a failure report; it is the earliest cost-saving signal a pavement designer gets.
