Transportation Engineering Commons^™

The Role Of Driver Age And Gender In Motor Vehicle Fatal Crashes, Heng Wei, Deogratias Eustace

Civil and Environmental Engineering and Engineering Mechanics Faculty Publications

This study compares the age and gender of at-fault drivers who were involved in fatal crashes and the corresponding driving errors that contributed to these crashes. This comparison provides insights that may help traffic engineers devise countermeasures to lessen the number of these unnecessary deaths. Data from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) for the years 2001 through 2003 were used in this study. The analysis included passenger vehicles (automobiles, utility vehicles, minivans, and pickup trucks) involved in either single or two vehicle crashes. The driver responsible in each crash was identified through the driver error variable codes as listed …

Nondestructive Testing Of Defective Astm A 514 Steel On The I ‐ 275 Combs‐Hehl Twin Bridges Over The Ohio River In Campbell County, Kentucky, Theodore Hopwood Ii, Sudhir Palle

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

Three defective ASTM A 514 steel splice plates were discovered on the I-275 Combs-Hehl twin bridges over the Ohio River. A follow-on in-depth field inspection of 1,356 A 514 steel plates on the bridges revealed 14 additional defective gusset and splice plates. The A 514 steel was improperly heat-treated resulting in a brittle crack-prone microstructure. Ultrasonic and impact hardness tests were used to identify the defective steel. Subsequently, the defective steel plates were either removed or lapped with additional steel plates.

Pavement Settlement Issues And Hydro-Geochemical Water Testing Results For The Cumberland Gap Tunnel, Brad Rister, Clark Graves, Jim Dinger

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

Both Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) surveys and Hydro-Geochemical Water Testing (HGWT) have been performed at the Cumberland Gap Tunnel to determine why the reinforced concrete pavement has settled in various areas throughout both tunnels. To date, approximately 7,300 total square feet of pavement surface has voids beneath it that range from 0.05 to 40 inches in depth. Both GPR and HGWT results indicate that approximately 0.75 to 1.5 cubic yards of limestone sub-base material leaves the tunnel in solution form on a monthly basis. Furthermore, HGWT results indicate that the ground water beneath the tunnels is calcium deficient. Thus allowing …

Melnikov Analysis Of A Ship's Stability With Water-On-Deck, Ying-Guang Wang

Journal of Marine Science and Technology

The nonlinear ship rolling motion with water-on-deck in regular beam waves is studied by utilizing a global geometric method. A ship stability criterion based upon the Melnikov function is obtained to provide an upper bound on the domain of the potential chaotic rolling motion. Phase plane diagrams and Poincare maps are used to validate the ship stability criterion obtained in this article.

Instrumentation For Mechanistic Design Implementation, Todd Scholz

TREC Final Reports

The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) Pavement Services Unit is in the process of implementing a new pavement design procedure being developed under the sponsorship of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials. Fatigue cracking is a key distress mechanism that is predicted as part of the overall process using a theoretical model calibrated to empirical data. Tensile strain at the underside of the hot-mix asphalt pavement layers induced by truck axle loads is, in turn, a key input into the fatigue cracking model. In the new design procedure tensile strain is predicted utilizing a layered elastic analysis …

Development And Evaluation Of The Midwest Guardrail System Placed Adjacent To A 2:1 Fill Slope, Mitchell J. Wiebelhaus, Ronald K. Faller, Robert W. Bielenberg, John R. Rohde, Karla A. Lechtenberg, Dean L. Sicking, Gopi Dey, John D. Reid

Nebraska Department of Transportation: Research Reports

No abstract provided.

Development And Evaluation Of The Midwest Guardrail System (Mgs) Placed Adjacent To A 2:1 Fill Slope, Mitchell J. Wiebelhaus, Ronald K. Faller, Karla A. Lechtenberg, Dean L. Sicking, Robert W. Bielenberg, John R. Rohde, John D. Reid, Gopi Dey

Nebraska Department of Transportation: Research Reports

No abstract provided.

Evaluation Plan For The Ticketing Aggressive Cars And Trucks (Tact) Program In Kentucky, Eric R. Green

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

Kentucky State Police Division of Commercial Vehicle Enforcement in cooperation with Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has started a concentrated education and enforcement campaign in an effort to increase the safety and awareness of drivers around commercial vehicles. The University of Kentucky Transportation Center has evaluated this campaign and reported the effectiveness of this effort. This study is a follow‐up to a 2007 study that focused on two high volume, high crash interstate areas: one in northern Kentucky on I‐75, and one in the Louisville area on I‐65. This study’s focus was moved to I‐75 around Fayette County (Lexington) …

Operating Characteristics Of Passenger Screening Processes And The Development Of A Paced Inspection System, Geraldine Kelly Leone

Dissertations

The airport checkpoint security screening (ACSS) system is an important line of defense against the introduction of dangerous objects into the U.S. aviation system. Recently, there has been much interest in modeling these systems and to derive operating parameters which optimize performance. In general there are two performance measures of interest (i) the waiting time of the arriving entities, and (ii) the allocated screening resources and its utilization. Clearly, the traveling public would like a zero waiting time, while airports are limited both in terms of space and resource capital. The arrival and exit entity in the ACSS system are …

La Motocicleta Como Modo De Transporte En Bogotá, Diego Fernando Pérez Vega, Henry Alberto Caicedo Alcantara

Ingeniería Civil

No abstract provided.

Direct Detection Of Localized Modulation Of On Concentration On An Electrode-Electrolyte Interface, Ravi Saraf, Gaurav Singh

Mid-America Transportation Center: Final Reports and Technical Briefs

The present invention directly measures localized electrochemical processes on a planar electrode using differential interferometry. The ionic charge accumulation at the electrode-electrolyte interface may be directly measured by using differential interferometry as a function of magnitude and frequency (for example, 2-50 kHz) of an external potential applied on an electrode. Methods in accordance with the present invention probe the ion dynamics confined to the electrical double layer. An electric field is applied using a pure AC potential and a superposition of AC and DC-ramp potential to measure ion concentration and detect redox processes.

A Hundred Miles On A Clear Day, Lydia F. Knight

Lydia F. Knight

No abstract provided.

Evaluation Of Rumble Stripes, Kenneth R. Agent

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

Lane departure has been shown to be a major cause of serious traffic crashes. Installing a rumble strip on the shoulders of two lane roads provide drivers with an audible warning that they are leaving their lane of travel. Painting the edge line on the rumble strip has the possible benefit of providing more wet, nighttime delineation through the portion of the edge line painted on the sloped portion of the groove. The objectives of this study were to: a) monitor the initial installations of rumble stripes and b) evaluate the results of rumble stripe installations.

Ten rural, two-lane road …

Infrared Thermography-Driven Flaw Detection And Evaluation Of Hot Mix Asphalt Pavements, Yong K. Cho, Yong-Rak Kim, Thaddaeus Bode

Nebraska Department of Transportation: Research Reports

This research was conducted to study more realistic explanations of how variables are created and dealt with during hot mix asphalt (HMA) paving construction. Several paving projects across the state of Nebraska have been visited where sensory devices were used to test how the selected variables contribute to temperature differentials including density, moisture content within the asphalt, material surface temperature, internal temperature, wind speed, haul time, and equipment type. Areas of high temperature differentials are identified using an infrared camera whose usefulness was initially confirmed with a penetrating thermometer. A non-nuclear density device was also used to record how the …

Kentucky Traffic Collision Facts 2010 Report, Kentucky Transportation Center, Kentucky State Police

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

KENTUCKY’S TRAFFIC COLLISION FACTS report for 2010 is based on collision reports submitted to the Kentucky State Police Records Branch. As required by Kentucky Revised Statutes 189.635, “every law enforcement agency whose officers investigate a vehicle accident of which a report must be made...shall file a report of the accident...within ten days after investigation of the accident upon forms supplied by the bureau.” The stated purpose of this requirement is to utilize data on traffic collisions for such purposes as will improve the traffic safety program in the Commonwealth. Data contained in this report are based solely on the observations …

Infrared Thermography-Driven Flaw Detection And Evaluation Of Hot Mix Asphalt Pavements, Yong K. Cho, Thaddaeus Bode, Yong-Rak Kim

Nebraska Department of Transportation: Research Reports

No abstract provided.

Route Change Decision Making By Hurricane Evacuees Facing Congestion, R. Michael Robinson, Asad Khattak

VMASC Publications

Successful evacuations of metropolitan areas require overcoming unexpected congestion that reduces traffic flows. Congestion may result from accidents, incidents, or other events that reduce road capacity. Traffic professionals and emergency managers may promote deviations from planned routes to bypass an area of congestion and speed mass exit. However, some route changes may actually reduce traffic flow rates, and in these cases decision makers may want to discourage use of alternate routes. By using results of a behavioral survey of potential hurricane evacuees, this study identifies variables associated with the decision to alter routes and also identifies frequently used information sources. …

Change Orders And Lessons Learned, Paul Goodrum, Timothy R. B. Taylor, William Lester, Alex Mccoy, Mohammed M. Uddin, Yongwei Shan

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

Many times, change is necessary for the success of a project. “Change, defined as any event that results in a modification of the original scope, execution time, or cost of work, happens on most projects due to the uniqueness of each project and the limited resources of time and money available for planning” (Hanna, Camlic, Peterson,& Nordheim, 2002). While change orders are necessary to address unforeseen conditions and other unavoidable or unanticipated occurrences, they tend to negatively affect construction. In most public works, change orders are the main reason for construction delays and cost overruns (Wu, Hsieh, & Cheng, 2005). …