Heavy-Duty Paver Pavements for Ports & Container Yards
Container yards, port roads and stackyards are where paver pavements work hardest: loaded trailers turning on the spot, reach stackers braking, heavy steel stored on the surface. It has been our core work for over two decades — making the blocks, often at the site itself, and laying them with our own crews.
Why ports and depots use interlocking pavers
They carry concentrated loads
Interlocking blocks share a load with their neighbours through fully packed joints, spreading wheel and outrigger loads into the base.
They can be repaired, not replaced
If the ground settles, the blocks are lifted, the base is put right and the same blocks go back — as we did at Berth No. 5, 6 & 7, NMPA Mangalore.
Areas can open in stages
A laid and compacted zone can be handed over while the next is still being paved, which suits working terminals.
They can be made at the port
Ports are often far from precast factories. A site plant removes the long haul for very large quantities.
Grades and thickness we have laid in heavy-duty areas
- Dhamra Port, Odisha
- 80 mm unipavers, 250 × 125 mm, M-50, BS 6717 · internal roads, truck parking, steel stackyard · about 2,50,000 sqm, 80 lakh blocks made at site in 12 months · herringbone at 45°
- Jalna Dry Port (logistics park), Maharashtra
- 120 mm unipavers, M-55, IS 15658 · 40,000 sqm for IPRCL in 6 months, 2021 · container storage and handling areas · made at site
- Balmer Lawrie Container Depot, Visakhapatnam
- 100 mm brick-shape pavers (100 × 200 mm), M-50, IS 15658 · container yard operational areas · 65,000 sqm, 2017, made at site
- CONCOR inland container depots (nine ICDs)
- 100 mm brick-shape pavers (100 × 200 mm), M-50, IS 15658 · container yards · supplied and laid
- General guide
- 80 mm M-50 for medium to heavy traffic; 100–120 mm, M-50 to M-60 for container yards, ports and very heavy loads — always confirmed against your pavement design and specification
Block grade is only half of it; the base, bedding sand, joints and edge restraints decide how the pavement behaves. See paver block specifications and kerbs for edge restraint.
What makes a port pavement last
- Laid to line, level and camber so water runs off rather than ponding
- Even bedding sand over a properly prepared base
- Jointing sand spread and brushed until every joint is full
- Kerbs and edge restraints fixed so the field of blocks cannot spread
- Areas released to traffic only after compaction and jointing
Laying and maintenance follow IRC:SP:63.
Proven with a vibratory roller
The finished pavements at Dhamra Port (M-50) and Jalna Dry Port (M-55) were both put through the vibratory roller test and came through without cracking. What the test shows →
Coastal and remote sites
Ports sit on coasts, and coasts bring monsoons, cyclones and waterlogging. At Dhamra our production area stood under water more than once, and the job was still completed. Drainage, protected cement storage, buffer stock and careful restarts after the weather are part of planning a port job, not an afterthought.
Read what a cyclone-prone monsoon teaches you about on-site precast.
Port and depot projects
Container yard paving for CONCOR
M-50 grade, 100 mm thick, 100 × 200 mm paver blocks to IS 15658, supplied and laid for Container Corporation of India Ltd (CONCOR) at nine inland container depots: