Engineering Commons^™

Investigation Of The Effective Use Of Warning Lights On Indiana Department Of Transportation (Indot) Vehicles And Equipment, Bob Mccullouch, Brandon Stevens

JTRP Technical Reports

This study was requested by INDOT to determine if current lighting packages used on INDOT maintenance vehicles, specifically snow plow vehicles, can be improved with other commercially available products. Different light products were obtained from various vendors, mounted on INDOT vehicles, and visual comparisons were performed under various lighting and weather conditions by a team of observers. The comparison evaluations were performed revealing that other light packages, LED models for most options, were brighter and certain colors more visible. The preferred light models are recommended. These recommendations were forwarded to appropriate individuals that make these decisions at INDOT. Implementation is …

Use Of Micropiles For Foundations Of Transportation Structures Final Report, Hoyoung Seo, Monica Prezzi

JTRP Technical Reports

In pile design, piles must be able to sustain axial loads from the superstructure without bearing capacity failure or structural damage. In addition, piles must not settle or deflect excessively in order for the serviceability of the superstructures to be maintained. In general, settlement controls the design of piles in most cases because, by the time a pile has failed in terms of bearing capacity, it is very likely that serviceability will have already been compromised. Therefore, realistic estimation of settlement for a given load is very important in design of axially loaded piles. This notwithstanding, pile design has relied …

Alternative Land Use Patterns To Minimize Congestion (Volume 3: Empirical Study Of Mixed Land Use Traditional Neighborhoods), Li Jin, Jon D. Fricker

JTRP Technical Reports

Urban sprawl creates serious traffic congestion. Alternative land use patterns may be the best solution. New Urbanists claim that, by placing frequently-visited sites within walking distance of homes and creating a pleasant walking environment, people are more willing to choose non-motorized transportation mode to do such activities.

Part I of this study investigated the ability of travel demand models to estimate the impacts of alternative land use patterns. Part II conducted an economic viability analysis for a mixed land use neighborhood and collected land use preferences at meetings of neighborhood associations. The objective in Part III was to evaluate the …

High-Performance Concrete Bridge Decks: A Fast-Track Implementation Study, Volume 1: Structural Behavior, Robert J. Frosch, Timothy S. Aldridge

JTRP Technical Reports

Transverse cracking of concrete bridge decks is problematic in numerous states. Cracking has been identified in the negative and positive moment regions of bridges and can appear shortly after opening the structure to live loads. To improve the service life of the bridge deck as well as decrease maintenance costs, changes to current construction practices in Indiana are being considered. A typical bridge deck was instrumented which incorporated the following: increased reinforcement amounts, decreasing reinforcement spacing, and high-performance, low-shrinkage concrete. The low shrinkage concrete was achieved using a ternary concrete mix. The objective of this research was to determine the …

Trade-Off Analysis Methodology For Asset Management, Qiang Bai, Samuel Labi, Zongzhi Li

JTRP Technical Reports

In an era that is characterized by funding limitations, increased stakeholder participation, and the need for increased accountability and transparency, transportation agencies seek to ensure that comprehensive evaluation processes are identified and used for decision-making. Consistent with such processes is the incorporation of multiple performance criteria from different program areas, optimization of decisions under constrained budgets, and investigation of trade-offs between program areas, performance measures, budgetary levels, risk levels, and performance thresholds. To help INDOT carry out these processes, this study developed theoretical constructs for scaling and amalgamation of the different performance measures, and for analyzing the different kinds of …

Safety And Operational Impacts Of Alternative Intersections, Andrew P. Tarko, Mike Inerowicz, Brandon Lang

JTRP Technical Reports

As the degradation of service at some conventional intersections increases, there becomes a need for alternative solutions other than expensive interchanges. Many alternative intersections have been proposed in the past. Under certain traffic and local conditions some solutions are more promising than other. In some cases, the conventional intersection may still be the optimal choice. The presented research focused on developing guidelines that would help planners and designers identify the most promising solutions for further analysis. This objective has been addresses in two ways. Firstly, the existing knowledge on alternative intersections has been identified. Secondly, the performance of conventional and …

Alternative Land Use Patterns To Minimize Congestion (Volume 2: Evaluating The Feasibility Of New Urbanism In An Existing Neighborhood), Huei Koh, Jon D. Fricker

JTRP Technical Reports

Urban sprawl creates serious traffic congestion. Alternative land use patterns may be the best solution. New Urbanists claim that, by placing frequently-visited sites within walking distance of homes and creating a pleasant walking environment, people are more willing to choose non-motorized transportation mode to do such activities.

Part I of this study investigated the ability of travel demand models to estimate the impacts of alternative land use patterns. Part II conducted an economic viability analysis for a mixed land use neighborhood and collected land use preferences at meetings of neighborhood associations. The objective in Part III was to evaluate the …

Alternative Land Use Patterns To Minimize Congestion (Volume 1: Comparative Analysis Of Mixed Land Use And Separated Land Use Neighborhoods), Amica Bose, Jon D. Fricker

JTRP Technical Reports

Urban sprawl creates serious traffic congestion. Alternative land use patterns may be the best solution. New Urbanists claim that, by placing frequently-visited sites within walking distance of homes and creating a pleasant walking environment, people are more willing to choose non-motorized transportation mode to do such activities.

Part I of this study investigated the ability of travel demand models to estimate the impacts of alternative land use patterns. Part II conducted an economic viability analysis for a mixed land use neighborhood and collected land use preferences at meetings of neighborhood associations. The objective in Part III was to evaluate the …

Methods Of Safety Improvements At Coordinated Signals, Wei Li, Andrew P. Tarko

JTRP Technical Reports

In this research, the safety impact of arterial signal coordination is investigated. Based on the findings, procedures are proposed to incorporate safety considerations into signal coordination design. In addition, a software tool is developed to facilitate the use of the research findings. Signal coordination has been extensively employed as a tool to optimize an arterial system’s mobility performance, commonly measured by the total number of vehicle stops and the time of delays. Although vehicle crashes at signalized intersections have long been recognized as a major safety threat, studies to date have been limited locally to non-coordinated signals or the noncoordinated …

Analysis And Determination Of Axle Load Spectra And Traffic Input For The Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Design Guide, Yi Jiang, Shuo Li, Tommy E. Nantung, Huaxin Chen

JTRP Technical Reports

The values of equivalent single axle loads (ESAL) have been used to represent the vehicle loads in pavement design. To improve the pavement design procedures, a new method, called the Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Design Guide (MEPDG), has been developed to use the axle load spectra to represent the vehicle loads in pavement design. These spectra represent the percentage of the total axle applications within each load interval for single, tandem, tridem, and quad axles. Using axle load spectra as the traffic input, the MEPDG method is able to analyze the impacts of varying traffic loads on pavement and provide an optimal …

Evaluation Of Performance And Design Of Ultra-Thin Whitetopping (Bonded Concrete Resurfacing) Using Large-Scale Accelerated Pavement Testing, Scott Newbolds, Jan Olek

JTRP Technical Reports

Ultra-Thin Whitetopping (UTW) is a pavement rehabilitation technique that involves the placement of a thin Portland Cement Concrete (PCC) overlay, 2 inches (50 mm) to 4 inches (100 mm) thick, over a distressed Hot Mix Asphalt (HMA) pavement. Typically, the HMA pavement is milled and cleaned which helps to create a bond between the existing HMA pavement and the PCC overlay. The bond between the two layers promotes composite action of the pavement section and as a result has a direct impact on the performance of the UTW Pavement. This composite action allows for the reduced thickness in the UTW …

Assessment Of Axially-Loaded Pile Dynamic Design Methods And Review Of Indot Axially-Loaded Pile Design Procedure, Dimitrios Loukidis, Rodrigo Salgado, Grace Abou-Jaoude

JTRP Technical Reports

The general aim of the present research is to identify areas of improvement and propose changes in the current methodologies followed by INDOT for design of axially loaded piles, with special focus on the dynamic analysis of pile driving. Interviews with INDOT geotechnical engineers and private geotechnical consultants frequently involved in INDOT’s deep foundation projects provided information on the methods and software currently employed. It was found that geotechnical engineers rely on static unit soil resistance equations that were developed over twenty years ago and that have a relatively large degree of empiricism. Updated and improved static design equations recently …

Development Of An Integrated Land-Use Transportation Model For Indiana, Li Jin, Jon D. Fricker

JTRP Technical Reports

The Indiana Department of Transportation has an operational statewide travel demand model (ISTDM). INDOT also has used the Land Use Central Indiana (LUCI) model to forecast conversion of land to residential and employment uses in future decades over a 44-county area in central Indiana. This paper describes how the LUCI model was expanded to cover the same geographic area as the ISTDM, how the internal structure of each model was made to be compatible with the other model, and how the outputs from each model were made to be suitable as inputs to the other model. The result is an …

Real-Time Arterial Traffic Signal Performance Measures, Christopher M. Day, Edward J. Smaglik, Darcy M. Bullock, James R. Sturdevant

JTRP Technical Reports

Increasing demand for highway system capacity compels transportation agencies to extract as much capacity as possible from existing systems. Traffic signals represent a major component of highway systems. Improvement of traffic signal operation requires accurate performance measures. Despite recent improvements in computing technology, traffic signal controllers are currently not able to capture useful performance measures on a cycle-by-cycle basis. This report presents a set of performance measures that could be collected on a cycle-by-cycle basis by a traffic signal controller given the capability to log phase indications and detector actuations. The performance measures investigated here include the volume-to-capacity ratio and …

Statewide Wireless Communications Project, Volume 1: Communication Field Tests For Satellite, Cellular, And Spread Spectrum Radio, J. V. Krogmeier, Darcy M. Bullock

JTRP Technical Reports

The Statewide Wireless Communications Project was an umbrella project intended to support various INDOT activities in the area of wireless communications. As these activities were conducted independently the report for the project is organized into three volumes. Volume 1 contains the results of satellite and cellular communications field testing undertaken in support of INDOT’s SiteManager application. Volume 1 also contains the results of an evaluation of spread spectrum radios for long-range communications. Volume 2 contains the results of detection zone evaluation for loop detection of bicycles and the results of testing algorithms for travel time estimation using vehicle re-identification based …

Statewide Wireless Communications Project, Volume 2: Inductive Loop Detection Of Bicycles And Inductive Loop Signature Processing For Travel Time Estimation, J. V. Krogmeier, Darcy M. Bullock

JTRP Technical Reports

The Statewide Wireless Communications Project was an umbrella project intended to support various INDOT activities in the area of wireless communications. As these activities were conducted independently the report for the project is organized into three volumes. Volume 1 contains the results of satellite and cellular communications field testing undertaken in support of INDOT’s SiteManager application. Volume 1 also contains the results of an evaluation of spread spectrum radios for long-range communications. Volume 2 contains the results of detection zone evaluation for loop detection of bicycles and the results of testing algorithms for travel time estimation using vehicle re-identification based …

Statewide Wireless Communications Project, Volume 3: Data Collection And Signal Processing For Improvement Of Road Profiling And Proof Of Concept Of A Vehicle-Infrastructure Based Road Surface Monitoring Application, J. V. Krogmeier, Darcy M. Bullock

JTRP Technical Reports

The Statewide Wireless Communications Project was an umbrella project intended to support various INDOT activities in the area of wireless communications. As these activities were conducted independently the report for the project is organized into three volumes. Volume 1 contains the results of satellite and cellular communications field testing undertaken in support of INDOT’s SiteManager application. Volume 1 also contains the results of an evaluation of spread spectrum radios for long-range communications. Volume 2 contains the results of detection zone evaluation for loop detection of bicycles and the results of testing algorithms for travel time estimation using vehicle re-identification based …

Knowledge-Based System To Support Site Investigation For Safety Improvement, Andrew P. Tarko, Andrew Kwasniak, Jorge Ramos

JTRP Technical Reports

Specialists in transportation and other areas of engineering are trying to improve road safety. The most difficult part is determining the road features, driver behaviors, and vehicular failures that unduly increase the risk of crash. To help INDOT safety investigation teams, a previous research project developed a prototype Road Safety Investigation Tool (RSIT) for two-way stop-controlled intersections. The research summarized here has evaluated the prototype RSIT and has developed a new version RSIT2 that has incorporated the findings of the evaluation.

The evaluation of the RSIT prototype confirmed usefulness of the proposed methodology. The tool has been applied to two …

Limit States And Load And Resistance Design Of Slopes And Retaining Structures, Dongwook Kim, Rodrigo Salgado

JTRP Technical Reports

Load and Resistance Factor Design (LRFD) methods for slopes and MSE walls were developed based on probability theory. The complexity in developing LRFD for slopes and MSE walls results from the fact that (1) the representation of spatial variability of soil parameters of slopes using Gaussian random field is computationally demanding and (2) LRFD of MSE walls requires examination of multiple ultimate limit states for both external and internal stability checks.

For each design case, a rational framework is developed accounting for different levels of target probability of failure (or target reliability index) based on the importance of the structure. …

Hollo-Bolt®: Blind Connector For Structural Steelwork, Purdue Ect Team

ECT Fact Sheets

Structural steel connections for connecting to square, rectangular or circular structural tube or to conventional steel where access is available from one side only poses problems. A technology was needed which could provide a quicker and tidier installation than traditional methods such as welding, unsightly strapping or drilling and tapping holes. The invention of the Hollo-Bolt® provided such a solution.

Smartball™: Free Swimming Leak Detection System, Purdue Ect Team

ECT Fact Sheets

Leak detection systems measure ultrasonic noise, infrared temperature variances or electrical flux to detect leakage in structures like, pipes, tanks, geo-membrane retaining structures etc. SmartBall® is a free flowing leak detection system developed by Pure Technologies. It consists of a foam ball that has a smaller aluminum ball at its core. This aluminum core houses an ultrasonic device that sends ultrasonic signals and also collects the reflected sound waves.

Automating Material Delivery Records, Joo Hyoung (Jay) Lee, Bob Mccullouch

JTRP Technical Reports

This project investigated methods on automating field data collection of materials. The method chosen and investigated was bar codes. The automated process requires material suppliers to produce delivery forms that can be recorded and tracked using bar codes. The report describes a system configuration that shows a conceptual process to electronically transfer materials information between the material supplier, trucking company, INDOT personnel and contractor. Other activities reported include survey results from other state transportation agencies, material suppliers, and concrete paving companies. Also, investigated was how to interface with SiteManager software. Recommendations described hardware options for using bar codes and industry …

Acquisition And Analysis Of Earthwork Pay Quantity Verification Data, Sharvil Saurabh Shah, Makarand Hastak

JTRP Technical Reports

This research identifies technologies and methods that can be used by INDOT in earthwork data collection and earthwork quantity calculation process on large construction projects that could result in timely completion of the projects with less labor and resultant cost. In order to achieve the above stated objective, several tasks were performed, i.e., literature review, data collection, data analysis, and recommendations. INDOT engineers were interviewed to determine their current state of practice. Also, all the state DOTs, professional companies in Indiana and vendors of earthwork data collection equipment and software products were contacted through questionnaire surveys and personal interviews. Two …

Alternatives To Fuel Tax: A State Level Perspective, Jungeun (Jen) Oh, Kumares C. Sinha

JTRP Technical Reports

Under the current fuel-tax-based highway financing system, the funding gap between highway needs and revenue available is expected to grow as vehicle fuel economy improves and use of alternative fuels increases. Consequently, the highway financing mechanism needs to be restructured or a different financing strategy undertaken. Previous research provided examples of successful implementation of pricing schemes in terms of design of pricing scheme, technology issues, legal and institutional issues, and public acceptability. Synthesizing this information, a methodological framework was established for evaluation of alternative user charging schemes. Based on the assessment of the current and projected highway revenue and the …

Implementation Of Station Health Monitoring Procedures For Its Sensors, Volume 2: Implementation Report, Joseph M. Ernst, Darcy M. Bullock

JTRP Technical Reports

No abstract provided.

Risk Assessment Of Various Median Treatments Of Rural Interstates, Natalie M. Villwock, Nicolas Paul Blond, Andrzej P. Tarko

JTRP Technical Reports

This report presents results of a comprehensive study that evaluates the safety impacts of alternative median treatments on rural freeways. Extensive data were obtained from Indiana, Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Washington, and Wisconsin. The studied median treatments include AASHTO-recommended treatments: depressed medians, depressed medians with high and lowtensioned cable barriers, and flush medians with concrete barriers. Other treatments used in the freeway design were also studied: medians with berms, sloped medians, and depressed medians with berms. Negative binomial models were developed to predict the frequency of crashes in three categories: single vehicle (SV), multiple vehicles same …

Durability And Retro-Reflectivity Of Pavement Markings (Synthesis Study), Yi Jiang

JTRP Technical Reports

Waterborne paints are used to paint pavement markings (edgelines and centerlines) to provide guidance for motorists. The painted markings need to be repainted periodically as their retro-reflectivity deteriorates. The Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) repaints pavement markings at least annually. INDOT engineers would like to determine the feasibility of extending the time intervals of repainting pavement markings on at least some types of roadways. The purpose of this synthesis study is to accomplish the following: (1) to locate and assemble documented information on pavement marking durability; (2) to learn what criteria have been used in other states in measuring retro-reflectivity …

Post-Construction Evaluation Of Lime-Treated Soils, Chulmin Jung, Antonio Bobet

JTRP Technical Reports

Lime is used to treat weak subgrade soils during construction of highways. A small amount of lime (4 to 7%) is used to rapidly dehydrate and modify fine grained soils. The modification process improves workability and compactability of the soils. Although the lime modification process is primarily aimed at construction expediency, additional effects such as long-term improvement of stiffness and/or strength by pozzolanic and carbonation cementation reactions are expected. Lime treatment has been employed in Indiana over several decades, but the long-term performance of lime-treated soils has not been well quantified and no field tests have been done on roads …

Deck Replacement - Use Of Extra Coating Thickness Epoxy-Coated Bars, J. A. Ramirez, Rachel Elizabeth Henkhaus

JTRP Technical Reports

The results of this study were implemented in the form of design recommendations for bond of epoxy-coated bars with thicker coatings up to 18 mils. The scope of the work included evaluation of AASHTO LRFD (2004) and ACI 318 design recommendedations for the development and splice length of extra epoxy-coating thinkness reinforcing bars in normal-weight concrete bridge decks and a proposed monitoring plan for a generic concrete bridge deck in Indiana where epoxy-coated bars with thicker coatings might be emeployed. The use of the current provisions for development and splice length of epoxy-coated bars in tension in both the AASHTO …