Civil Engineering Commons^™

Forensic Investigation Of Failed Mast Arms Of Traffic Signal Supported Structures, Genda Chen, Michael G. Barker, D. Scott Mackenzie, Christopher W. Ramsay, Joe Alderson, Lokeswarappa R. Dharani, Jiaqing Yu

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In Missouri, 11 traffic signal mast arms fractured at the arm-post weld connection in 7 years. To reduce this fatigue failure, the Missouri Department of Transportation developed a fatigue-resistant weld profile that increases the weld leg and reduces the slope of the weld at the toe. This study investigated causes of the failed arms, compared performance of new and old weld profiles, and suggested retrofitting measures for further investigation. The scope included a metallurgical investigation of one failed field mast arm, laboratory fatigue testing of five prototype mast arms (two new and three old profiles), and laboratory failure analysis of …

An Evaluation Of Innovative Transportation Financing Techniques For Indiana, Kristine Drike, A. Vincent Genetti, Kumares C. Sinha

JTRP Technical Reports

Innovative financing techniques can complement current methods of financing highway projects in Indiana. Annual federal apportionments and Indiana state revenues are not sufficient to maintain and improve state highways, so innovative approaches in transportation project financing should be sought. There are several available innovative financing techniques associated with the use of federal funds. Although, they do not provide new sources of revenue and cannot create enough funds for all identified projects, they provide flexibility in the use of available funds that can expedite the implementation of individual projects. The main objective of this study was to evaluate the major innovative …

Design Of Durable Concrete Railroad Crossings, Anthony J. Lamanna, Charles F. Scholer

JTRP Technical Reports

Existing precast concrete railroad crossings in the state of Indiana are experiencing too short a life expectancy. This study proposes methods that can be used to produce durable concrete railroad crossings with satisfactory rideability, durability, and longevity. Thirty-two precast concrete railroad crossings were visited in central and northern Indiana. Failures were determined to belong to three major categories: structural capacity causes, environmental causes, and material property causes. A concrete mix was evaluated at three different polyolefin fiber contents and without fibers. Beams were tested in flexure, and modulus of rupture and first crack deflection were recorded for each beam. Cylinders …

Concrete Overlay As A Rehabilitation Option For Distressed Asphalt Pavements, Sudarshan Rajan, J. Olek

JTRP Technical Reports

Ultra-thin Whitetopping (UTW) involves placing a very thin concrete overlay 50 mm to 100 mm thick (2”-4”) on the milled surface of a distressed asphalt pavement. To investigate the performance of UTW placed over a flexible pavement subjected to slow and heavy moving wheel loads, whitetopping mixes were placed over a milled pavement surface in the Accelerated Pavement Testing (APT) facility of the Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) Research Division in West Lafayette Indiana in the fall of 1999. The UTW installation experiment consisted of four test ‘lanes’ of two different thicknesses; each utilizing plain and fiber reinforced concrete. The …

Design Of Mse Walls For Fully Saturated Conditions, Antonio Bobet

JTRP Technical Reports

The current design of MSE walls, which is based on limit state analysis, does not apply to undrained conditions. Laboratory and numerical pullout tests are performed to determine the relation between drained and undrained pullout capacities for different soil types (clean sand, 5, 10, 15 and 35 % silty sand), overburden pressures (30, 100 and 200 kPa), and scale and permeability effects in the dissipation of excess pore pressures. The results of the pullout tests show that both drained and undrained pullout capacities change as silt content changes since the pullout capacity increases as the internal friction angle of the …

Effectiveness Of The Borman Expressway Its Program On Local Air Quality, Timothy M. Labreche, Robert Bertram Jacko, Barry K. Partridge, William H. Schneider, Ahmed S. Soliman

JTRP Technical Reports

Particulate Matter less than 2.5 μm in diameter (PM2.5), carbon monoxide (CO), and meteorological parameters were monitored at 10 second averaging intervals adjacent the Borman Expressway in Northwestern Indiana before and during the implementation of an Intelligent Transportation System. Traffic data was collected from sensors on the expressway. The high-resolution data permitted the expressway contribution to local air quality to be separated from background components of local air quality and significant correlations were made between pollutant flux and traffic flow and pollutant flux and highway occupancy. Traffic incidents (accidents / congestion) were shown to have a rapid impact on local …

Effects Of Heavier Truck Loadings And Super-Single Tires On Subgrades, Rodrigo Salgado, Daehyeon Kim

JTRP Technical Reports

Due to their efficiency and economy, super-single tires have gradually been replacing conventional dual tires in the trucking industry. According to recent studies, super-single tires generate much higher vertical contact stresses than do conventional dual tires, resulting in larger deformations and more severe damage to the subgrade. In order to better assess the higher stresses generated by super-single tires and their effect on the subgrade, analyses are done taking into account soil plasticity rather than simple elastic analysis. In this study, the effects of super-single tires on subgrades for typical road cross-sections are investigated using plane-strain (2D) and 3D static …

Fatigue Behavior Of Beam Diaphragm Connections With Intermittent Fillet Welds, Part I, Volume 1, Field Evaluation, Tammy L. Canna, Mark D. Bowman

JTRP Technical Reports

This report is the first of a two-part, three volume final report presenting the findings of the research work that was undertaken to evaluate the behavior of Indiana highway bridges with diaphragm members welded directly to the web of the primary beams and girders. Fatigue cracks have been observed at several bridges that utilize the welded diaphragm connection. The seriousness of the cracking and the corresponding potential risk on the integrity of the bridge superstructure were assessed. Inspection and repair guidelines for bridges with the welded diaphragm connections were also developed as part of the research effort. This volume presents …

Guidelines For Use And Types Of Retaining Devices, Antonio Bobet

JTRP Technical Reports

A large number of types of retaining devices are currently available but their limitations, recommendations and guidelines are scattered in the technical literature. A synthesis study has been made in which different technologies have been investigated to develop guidelines for the use of the different types of retaining devices. For this purpose, an extensive literature review has been performed and a new classification has been proposed. An electronic database with 207 selected cases from the technical literature and INDOT archives has been created. The database stores the following information: (1) Type of Retaining Device; (2) Geometry (3) Soil conditions; (4) …

Improving Efficiency Of Indot Traffic Data Collection Using Gps Devices, Shuo Li, Karen Zhu, Boudewijn H. W. Van Gelder, John Nagle, Carl Tuttle

JTRP Technical Reports

INDOT has utilized many new technologies to reduce travel delay, mitigate traffic congestion, and enhance public and employees’ safety. Many projects are underway, including re-timing of most existing traffic signals and pavement maintenance and rehabilitation. To evaluate signal system performance, prioritize alternatives of improvement, conduct before and after studies and investigate work zone safety, it requires a large amount of traffic data such as travel time, speed and delay. Issues, such as safety, efficiency and cost, may arise associated with the current methods. For the current manual or automatic data collection, it usually requires two operators, a driver and a …

Internet-Supported Evaluation Of Highway Safety, Andrzej P. Tarko, Brian Desalle

JTRP Technical Reports

Few current methods of identifying hazardous locations take into account the perspective of highway users. It is generally accepted by human factor experts that user feedback can provide valuable insight into safety at highway locations that is not obtainable through the use of crash data. However, little research has been conducted in the highway transportation area, and the relationship between user perception and actual safety at a location is not well known. Currently, motorist feedback in Indiana is gathered by individual highway agencies through the use of a phone and mail collection process. A centralized feedback collection would not only …

Mid-Panel Cracking Of Portland Cement Concrete Pavements In Indiana, Hung-Ming Chen, Yunus Dere, Elisa D. Sotelino, Graham C. Archer

JTRP Technical Reports

Portland cement concrete slabs are a common form of highway pavements in Indiana. As a result of their widespread use, the economic impact of their maintenance and life span is therefore tremendous. In Indiana, these types of pavements have been experiencing premature random transverse mid-panel cracking. This phenomenon has been observed under a variety of environmental and traffic conditions. Also, it has been found that the cracking occurs in conjunction with the opening of the lanes to traffic, within months of construction. In this project, a research synthesis was carried out to determine exactly what the current state of knowledge …

Load Tests On Pipe Piles For Development Of Cpt-Based Design Method, Kwangkyum Kim, Rodrigo Salgado, Junhwan Lee, Kyuho Paik

JTRP Technical Reports

This research focused on the drivability and load-carrying capacity of both open and closed-ended steel pipe piles. Two pipe piles (one open-ended, the other closed-ended) were installed in a sandy soil to the same depth. The site was extensively characterized. SPT and CPT tests were performed both before and after pile installation. A variety of soil indices and shear strength parameters (such as the constant-volume friction angle) were measured in the laboratory. The piles were fully instrumented, permitting separate measurement of shaft and base capacity for the closed-ended pile and shaft, annulus and soil plug capacities for the open-ended pile. …

Performance-Related Specifications For Concrete Bridge Superstructures, Volume 4: Bond Of Epoxy-Coated Bars With Thicker Coatings, J. A. Ramirez, Michael K. Appelhans

JTRP Technical Reports

In Volume 4 of the final report, the results of an evaluation of the bond performance of epoxy-coated bars with a coating thickness up to 18 mils are presented. The experimental work on the bond performance of epoxy-coated bars with thickness up to 18 mils indicates that the current AASHTO requirements for development length of epoxy-coated bars up to #8 could be safely extended to coating thickness of up to 18 mils. Thus, no change to the bond specifications is recommended in order to implement the use of bars with diameters up to a #8 with epoxy-coating thickness up to …

Performance-Related Specifications For Concrete Bridge Superstructures, Volume 3: Nonmetallic Reinforcement, Robert J. Frosch, Christopher P. Mosley, Ahmet Koray Tureyen

JTRP Technical Reports

In Volume 3 of the final report, research work conducted to investigate the behavior of fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) reinforcement is summarized. This study focused on the behavior of FRP reinforced concrete structures with an emphasis on bond and shear. For the bond investigation, three series of beam splice tests were performed on specimens reinforced with steel, glass FRP, and aramid FRP to determine the effect of the different types of reinforcement on bond, cracking, and deflections. The test results indicate that the use of FRP reinforcement leads to lower bond strengths and, therefore, require longer development lengths. The specimen …

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An Initial Evaluation Of Design-Build Highway Projects Performed By The Indiana Department Of Transportation, Nicholas Tymvios, Bob G. Mccullouch, Kumares C. Sinha

JTRP Technical Reports

Design-Build has been an effective contracting method in the private and public arenas. Departments of Transportation have used this contracting method on various projects for a variety of reasons. The Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) has used this contract delivery method on a few projects with mixed responses from those involved in the process. INDOT therefore felt that an evaluation of the Design-Build program was appropriate to determine its future use in Indiana. This report gives a historical perspective of Design-Build and how the program has been received and perceived by INDOT; describes the project’s survey and the data collected …

Development Of A Portable Video Detection System For Counting Turning Vehicles At Intersections, Andrzej P. Tarko, Robert Scott Lyles

JTRP Technical Reports

This research was conducted to test the feasibility of using existing video-detection techniques for counting turning volumes with a portable installation. This was accomplished by integrating a forty-five foot mechanical tower mounted on a van with two video detection systems, Autoscope and VideoTrak. The research project has produced results in three categories: prototype methods of counting turning volumes, evaluation results, and general specifications of a portable video-based system for counting vehicles at intersections. The method based on spot detection uses redundancy of data (more spots than movements) to improve the results quality. The method for VideoTrak one-dimensional tracking classifies maneuvers …

Evaluation Of Selected Video Detection Systems At Signalized Intersections, Jeromy L. Grenard, Darcy M. Bullock, Andrzej P. Tarko

JTRP Technical Reports

Video detection technologies have been emerging in recent years as a viable alternative to inductive loop detectors to actuate intersection signal controllers. There is a need for quantitative evaluation procedures for documenting the performance of video detection technologies. This quantitative data is needed to qualify systems for procurement and provide benchmarks for training traffic signal technicians that deploy and maintain these systems. This research makes use of two new evaluation procedures for video detection, with several measures of performance. The first of these evaluation procedures involves the comparison of the occupancy times of inductive loop detectors and video detectors to …

Noise Control And Speech Intelligibility Improvement Of A Toll Plaza, Luc Mongeau, Robert J. Bernhard, Jeffery P. Feist

JTRP Technical Reports

Vehicular toll roads are one component of many municipal transportation systems. Open communication windows, often used in tollbooths, facilitate essential communication and monetary transactions. However, the vehicle noise generated outside the booth is easily transmitted into the booth via the open window. Personnel working at toll collection plazas are exposed to extended, continuous traffic noise. Sustained noise levels of this nature may cause hearing loss, induce fatigue or stress, and reduce worker productivity. The annoyance and discomfort related to continuous noise exposure may create an unpleasant working condition and may affect the hospitality of the tollbooth operators and their attitude …

Performance-Related Specifications For Concrete Bridge Superstructures, Volume 1: Performance Parameters And Related Procedure For Concrete Bridge Superstructures, J. A. Ramirez, Jhon Paul Smith

JTRP Technical Reports

In Volume 1 of the final report, the identification of performance levels and parameters, and the development of acceptance criteria, have been addressed. Emphasis has been placed on the development of a methodology for a Performance Related Specification, PRS, for concrete bridge superstructures. The implementation of the methodology, presented in the form of a user-friendly computer program, is project specific. It requires the mean and standard deviation (or definition of a probability distribution) of the input parameters for the performance predictive models. This is done for both the as-designed condition and the as-built condition of the structure. The contractor is …

Strengthening Of Deteriorating Decks Of Highway Bridges In Indiana Using Frpc, Elisa D. Sotelino, Ming-Hung Teng

JTRP Technical Reports

Many industries, such as the aerospace and the automotive industries have successfully used Fiber Reinforced Polymer Composites (FRPC). These types of composite materials offer significant advantages over conventional civil engineering materials, such as concrete and steel. This is due to their chemical and corrosion resistance, lightweight, and high strength, which make them attractive for the rehabilitation of civil infrastructures. The objective of this research project is to study the feasibility of using of FRP as a retrofit or construction material for bridge decks. This has been accomplished by means of a synthesis study. This study included a comprehensive literature review …

Use Of Reclaimed Asphalt Pavement (Rap) Under Superpave Specifications: A Regional Pooled Fund Project, Rebecca Mcdaniel, Hamid Soleymani, Ayesha Shah

JTRP Technical Reports

This regional pooled fund project was conducted to investigate the performance of Superpave asphalt mixtures incorporating RAP. This study was closely coordinated with a national study on the same topic (NCHRP 9-12, Incorporation of Reclaimed Asphalt Pavement in the Superpave System). Specifically, this regional project looked at typical materials from the North Central United States to determine if the findings of NCHRP 9-12 were valid for Midwestern materials and to expand the NCHRP findings to include higher RAP contents.

Three RAP materials from Indiana, Michigan and Missouri were evaluated. Mixtures were designed and tested in the laboratory with each RAP, …

Virtual Weigh Station, John Gregory Green, Andrew P. Nichols, Ed Allen, Luke Nuber, Jose E. Thomaz, Darcy M. Bullock, Guy Boruff, Jay Wasson, Mark Newland

JTRP Technical Reports

Overweight trucks shorten highway life and indirectly increase the costs of maintaining roads. Improved methods for enforcement of commercial vehicle weight laws may increase the number of overweight vehicles caught, thereby prolonging highway life. Improved enforcement may also reduce the number of illegally operating vehicles. This report describes the concept of using existing INDOT Weigh-In-Motion equipment, a laptop computer, and wireless communication equipment, to develop a virtual weigh station screening tool. The Virtual Weigh Station screening tool developed in this project allows officers to read the weights of vehicles crossing WIM scales, in real time, in their patrol cars. Giving …

Performance-Related Specifications For Concrete Bridge Superstructures, Volume 2: High-Performance Concrete, J. Olek, Aijsing Lu, Xiuping Feng, Bryan Magee

JTRP Technical Reports

This is Volume 2 of the Final Report for the project titled “Performance-Related Specifications for Concrete-Bridge Superstructures” dealing with the topic of High-Performance Concrete (HPC). The investigation of high-performance concrete included the development of optimized concrete mixtures and identifying their performance characteristics related to durability for the purpose of using these characteristics in performance–related specifications in the state of Indiana. The research effort described in this report was divided in two phases. Phase I was focused on development of concrete mixtures optimized with respect to selected performance-related parameters. During this phase, ten optimum concrete mixes have been identified from 45 …

Fatigue Behavior Of Beam Diaphragm Connections With Intermittent Fillet Welds, Part I, Volume 2, Laboratory Fatigue Evaluation, Amy S. Barth, Mark D. Bowman

JTRP Technical Reports

This report is the second of a two-part, three volume final report presenting the findings of the research work that was undertaken to evaluate the behavior of Indiana highway bridges with diaphragm members welded directly to the web of the primary beams and girders. Fatigue cracks have been observed at several bridges that utilize the welded diaphragm connection. The seriousness of the cracking and the corresponding potential risk on the integrity of the bridge superstructure were assessed. Inspection and repair guidelines for bridges with the welded diaphragm connections were also developed as part of the research effort. This volume presents …

Counting Device Selection And Reliability: Synthesis Study, Srinivas Peeta, Pengchang Zhang

JTRP Technical Reports

Accuracy in traffic data detection is important for transportation operations and planning. Currently, inductive loop detectors are the most commonly used traffic counting devices in the field. New technologies are being developed to meet growing data counting and traffic surveillance needs. They include passive infrared, active infrared, passive magnetic, Doppler microwave, radar, passive acoustic, pulse and Doppler ultrasonic and video image processor. However, the relatively recent, but widespread, emergence of these technologies and the consequent sparseness in information on their performance characteristics preclude traffic agencies from making informed choices in the selection of traffic counting devices. This study performs a …

Fatigue Behavior Of Beam Diaphragm Connections With Intermittent Fillet Welds: Part Ii, Brittle Fracture Examination Of The I-64 Blue River Bridge, Mark D. Bowman

JTRP Technical Reports

This report is the second of a two-part, three volume final report presenting the findings of the research work that was undertaken to evaluate the behavior of Indiana highway bridges with diaphragm members welded directly to the web of the primary beams and girders. Fatigue cracks have been observed at several bridges that utilize the welded diaphragm connection. The seriousness of the cracking and the corresponding potential risk on the integrity of the bridge superstructure were assessed. Inspection and repair guidelines for bridges with the welded diaphragm connections were also developed as part of the research effort. This volume presents …

Updating Procedures To Estimate And Forecast Vehicle-Miles Traveled, Jon D. Fricker, Raymond K. Kumapley

JTRP Technical Reports

Procedures developed for the estimation of Vehicle-Miles of Travel (VMT) have been fraught with problems of inaccuracy. Emphasis on environmental issues (air quality), as mandated by current regulations (CAAA, ISTEA-91, and TEA 21), requires State DOTs to accurately estimate travel on their highway infrastructure. The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has developed, and subsequently modified, the Highway Performance Monitoring System (HPMS) to assist in data collection and reporting. INDOT currently estimates VMT by a method that closely follows the HPMS method. Roads that are not on the state highway system (minor collectors, urban collectors and local) are not represented in the …

Influence Of Curing Conditions On Strength Properties And Maturity Development Of Concrete, Scott Andrew Newbolds, Jan Olek

JTRP Technical Reports

In this study, the results of both laboratory studies and a field study, conducted to evaluate the effects of different curing conditions on the strength properties and maturity development of pavement concrete, are presented. Further, a laboratory study was performed to evaluate the maturity concept in relation to the degree of hydration of cement. Concrete specimens, beams and cylinders, were prepared in the field study. The specimens in the field were cured in one of four curing conditions: lime bath, sandpit, air, or by temperature match curing. Specimens were tested for flexural strength and compressive strength, respectively. The temperature of …