Programme Overview
This intensive five-day course provides civil engineers with a rigorous, software-driven workflow for the geometric design and documentation of roads — from horizontal alignment through vertical profile, earthworks optimisation, pavement structural analysis, and drainage design. The course is built around AutoCAD Civil 3D, the industry standard CAD/BIM platform for road design, supplemented by CivilCAD for rapid profile and quantity calculations on Nigerian infrastructure projects.
All exercises are drawn from real TierraSYNC projects — including Federal and State road rehabilitation contracts, FERMA corridor studies, and World Bank–funded rural access routes — giving participants exposure to the design standards, terrain conditions, and procurement requirements they will encounter on Nigerian practice.
"Road design in Nigeria demands competence in both the international geometric standards and the practical realities of laterite subgrades, seasonal flooding, and limited survey data. This course bridges that gap — from AutoCAD Civil 3D corridors to AASHTO flexible pavement design, entirely on Nigerian terrain data." — TierraSYNC highways team
Daily Course Schedule
01
Geometric Design Principles & AutoCAD Civil 3D Setup
- Morning — Theory: Review of geometric design standards for Nigerian roads — Federal Ministry of Works Design Manual, AASHTO Green Book; road classification (expressway, trunk A/B/C, urban arterial, rural collector, access); design speed selection; sight distance — stopping sight distance (SSD), passing sight distance (PSD), decision sight distance (DSD); design vehicle and swept path; carriageway and shoulder widths; lane configuration and median design; clearances and cross-fall standards
- Afternoon — Civil 3D Setup: AutoCAD Civil 3D interface for road design — Toolspace, Prospector, Settings; creating a Civil 3D project from scratch; importing survey data and point clouds; surface creation from survey points, breaklines, and contours (TIN surface); surface analysis — elevation banding, slope analysis, watershed tool; working with QGIS-exported DEMs and contour data as Civil 3D surfaces
- Hands-on exercise: create a Civil 3D TIN surface from a GPS survey point file for a Nigerian road corridor; run elevation and slope analysis and export a shaded contour map
02
Horizontal Alignment Design & Corridor Modelling
- Morning — Theory: Horizontal alignment components — tangents, circular curves, transition (spiral) curves; curve design parameters — radius, deflection angle, tangent length, curve length, mid-ordinate, external distance; superelevation and superelevation transition (runoff and runout); horizontal sight distance on curves; compound and reverse curves; constraints and trade-offs in alignment selection (terrain, settlements, environmental features, cost); alignment comparison and route selection methodology
- Afternoon — Civil 3D Horizontal Design: Creating and editing alignments in Civil 3D — fixed, floating, and free entities; applying design criteria (design speed, minimum radius, maximum superelevation); automatic superelevation calculation and transition design; corridor model creation — assembly editor (lane, shoulder, sub-base, base, wearing course subassemblies); attaching corridor to alignment and profile; region-based corridor modelling for varying cross-sections; extracting alignment stationing and chainage reports
- Hands-on exercise: design a 10 km horizontal alignment for a rural Class B road in undulating Nigerian terrain; apply superelevation design and generate a curve data schedule
03
Vertical Alignment, Earthworks & Quantity Estimation
- Morning — Theory: Vertical alignment design — grades, K-values, crest and sag vertical curves; minimum and maximum grades; vertical sight distance; coordination of horizontal and vertical alignment (3D consistency); earthworks — cut and fill volumes, mass haul analysis, mass haul diagram, balance point and limit of economic haul; shrinkage and swell factors for Nigerian tropical soils (laterite, black cotton soil, sandy soils); borrow pit and spoil disposal requirements; ground improvement options for problem soils
- Afternoon — Civil 3D Vertical Design & Earthworks: Profile view creation in Civil 3D — existing ground profile from surface; designing the finished grade profile (FGL); applying K-values and checking sight distance; locked and floating grade entities; corridor surface generation (top of pavement, datum, sub-grade); computing earthwork volumes — end area, prismoidal correction, average end area method; Civil 3D volume dashboard and stage storage; CivilCAD mass haul diagram generation; optimising alignment to minimise earthworks cost; generating cross-section sheets at selected intervals
- Hands-on exercise: design a vertical profile for the Day 2 alignment, optimise cut-fill balance using the Civil 3D volume dashboard, and produce 20 cross-section plot sheets for a quantity survey report
04
Pavement Structural Design & Materials
- Morning — Theory: Flexible pavement design methodology — AASHTO 1993 method (structural number concept, resilient modulus, serviceability, traffic loading); Nigerian standard layer thicknesses and material specifications; traffic data collection and analysis — Annual Average Daily Traffic (AADT), directional and lane distribution factors, vehicle classification; Equivalent Standard Axle Load (ESAL) calculation; subgrade characterisation — California Bearing Ratio (CBR) testing and interpretation; typical CBR values for Nigerian soils; subbase and base course options — natural gravel, crushed stone, stabilised laterite; wearing course options — asphalt concrete (AC), Surface Dressed (SD), Otta Seal; layer equivalency factors and layer coefficient selection
- Afternoon — Pavement Design Computation: AASHTO flexible pavement design worked example using Nigerian traffic and soil data; sensitivity analysis — effect of design period, CBR, and reliability level on structural number; pavement layer thickness calculation and rounding to practical values; pavement design for rehabilitation — remaining service life, overlay design using deflection data (Benkelman Beam); rigid pavement overview — PCA method, slab thickness, joint spacing, reinforcement; preparing a pavement design report with material specifications per Federal MoW format; introduction to HDM-4 for road asset management and life-cycle cost analysis
- Hands-on exercise: complete a full AASHTO pavement design for a 15 km rural road using provided CBR and traffic data; prepare layer schedule and material specification table for inclusion in a bill of quantities
05
Highway Drainage Design & Integrated Project Workshop
- Morning — Drainage Design: Highway drainage principles — surface drainage, subsurface drainage, cross drainage; roadside drain design — trapezoidal and rectangular open channels; Manning's equation application to shaped drains; inlet and outlet protection; catch pits and silt traps; cross drainage structures — culvert type selection (circular pipes, box culverts, arch culverts), hydraulic sizing using Rational Method and HEC-RAS; drift and Irish crossing design for rural Nigerian roads; bridge vs culvert decision thresholds; scour assessment and protection (gabion mattress, riprap, concrete apron); drainage of black cotton soil areas — interceptor drains, camber, and blanket drainage
- Afternoon — Integrated Project Workshop: Full road design workflow integration — assemble the Day 2–3 geometric design, Day 4 pavement structure, and Day 5 drainage design into a complete design package; generate Civil 3D plan-and-profile sheets (standard A1 format); produce a road design drawing set — key plan, typical cross-section, alignment sheets, drainage details; compile earthwork and drainage quantity schedules for a bill of quantities; discuss quality assurance checkpoints in road design; review of real TierraSYNC road design deliverables (Kaduna State rural roads, FERMA corridor rehabilitation); Q&A and certificate presentations
- Final deliverable: each participant submits a complete A3 plan-and-profile sheet with earthwork notes and a drainage summary table for the project corridor
Software & Data Requirements
- AutoCAD Civil 3D 2024/2025 — 30-day trial or student licence from Autodesk Education Community (free with .edu email); alternatively Autodesk Flex tokens
- CivilCAD 2024 — trial version provided; used for rapid profile design and earthwork computation on lower-spec machines
- QGIS 3.34 LTS — free; used for terrain preprocessing, DEM export, and route corridor mapping
- Microsoft Excel — for ESAL calculation, pavement design worksheets, and quantity schedules (templates provided)
All survey data, point files, DEM tiles, traffic count data, CBR test results, and project reference drawings are provided by TierraSYNC. A 16 GB USB drive is issued to each participant on Day 1 containing all datasets and software installers.
Hardware recommendation: Windows laptop with minimum 16 GB RAM, 60 GB free disk space, dedicated GPU (4 GB+), and a 64-bit processor. Civil 3D performs poorly on shared graphics cards — participants should confirm hardware compatibility before the course. TierraSYNC can arrange lab access in Abuja for participants without suitable laptops.
Who Should Attend
- Civil engineers involved in road design, supervision, or project management for Federal and State road contracts
- Engineers on World Bank, AfDB, JICA, or bilateral-funded road projects in Nigeria requiring CAD-based design deliverables
- FERMA, FCT-FCDA, and State Ministry of Works technical staff responsible for road design review and approval
- Structural and geotechnical engineers expanding into highway and pavement design
- Engineering graduates and early-career engineers seeking practical competency in road design software
- Highway engineering consultants seeking to transition from manual drafting to full Civil 3D workflow
Prerequisite knowledge: A degree in civil engineering or a related discipline. Basic familiarity with AutoCAD (2D drafting) is helpful but not required — Civil 3D orientation is covered on Day 1. No prior Civil 3D experience is needed.