Transportation Engineering Commons^™

Assessment Of Compatibility Of Mineral Aggregates And Binders Used In Highway Construction And Maintenance Projects, Zahid Hossain Ph.D, Ashraf Elsayed Ph.D, Tandra Bagchi, Sumon Roy

Publications

Stripping and delamination have been deemed as some of the major premature pavement distresses to most state Departments of Transportations (DOTs) and highway agencies including the Arkansas Department of Transportation (ARDOT). It is believed that the poor compatibility between asphalt binders and aggregates is one of the major reasons behind this. This study aims to analyze the compatibility of selected asphalt binders and aggregates used in Arkansas. Asphalt binders used in this study include PG 64-22, PG 70-22, and PG 76-22; each prepared from two different crude courses. Additionally, four different types of aggregates (sandstone, limestone, gravel, and dolomite) from …

Selecting The Most Feasible Construction Phasing Plans For Urban Highway Rehabilitation Projects, Kunhee Choi Ph.D, H. David Jeong Ph.D, Yong-Cheol Lee, Yangtian Yin

Publications

Despite the abundance of research that has aimed to understand the effects of highway work zones, very little definitive information is available concerning the determination of work zone length (WZL). Quantitative studies that holistically model WZL are very rare. To fill this gap, this study identifies critical factors affecting WZL and develops decision support models that determine the optimal WZL in a balanced tradeoff between motorists’ inconvenience due to traffic disruption and their opportunity cost. A high-confidence dataset was created by conducting a series of scheduling and traffic simulations and analyses. The results revealed that traffic loading and work zone …

Seismic Ground Motion Data Analyses For North-East Arkansas, Zahid Hossain Ph.D, Ashraf Elsayed Ph.D, Md Ariful Hasan, Md Rafiue Islam

Publications

Estimation of liquefaction resistance and shear velocities are key elements in the assessment of potential earthquake damage of existing and new construction sites. The Arkansas Department of Transportation (ARDOT) and other agencies in the region need ground motion response analysis (GMRA) data of specific construction sites. As part of a recent ARDOT’s Transportation Research Committee (TRC) project, researchers have conducted geophysical investigations several construction sites in northeast Arkansas over the past twelve years. The current study gathered the previously reported test data and estimated seismic hazard properties such as shear wave velocity profiles and seismic hazard coefficients for nearby locations. …

Enhancing Evaluation Of Wildlife Detection Systems, Nick N. Ferenchak Ph.D

Publications

Every year in the United States, wildlife-vehicle collisions (WVCs) cause 200 human fatalities, 26,000 human injuries, and substantial harm to wildlife populations, resulting in approximately $8.4 billion in total costs. The research team examined two US 64 bridges located near Lumberton, New Mexico that were designed to allow wildlife to cross underneath. Monitoring stations were positioned at each of the crossings so that both wildlife approaches and passages were observed. Special mounting brackets were designed and fabricated to allow for the installation of monitoring equipment. Wildlife observations were supplemented with WVC counts. Over seven months of study, nearly 100,000 wildlife …

Optimizing The Geometric Configuration And Manufacturing Process Of High Mast Illumination Poles, Arturo Montoya Ph.D, Adolfo Matamoros Ph.D, Reza Nasouri, Echizeni Ikpah, Arsalan Majlesi

Publications

This work presents the development of a high-fidelity model that accounts for the cumulative effect of welding and hot- dip galvanizing on the determining the resulting residual stresses and deformations induced during the manufacturing process of high mast illumination poles (HMIPs). This model is meant to elucidate the root causes of weld toe cracks in HMIPs. A TxDOT pole-to-base plate connection detail was used as the reference model in the analysis. Welding was modeled using the plug-in Abaqus Welding Interface (AWI), which automatically implements a series of sequential thermal and mechanical analyses. Then, the welding stress results were used as …

Bridge Construction Monitoring Using Lidar For Quantified, Objective Quality-Control Quality-Assurance (Qoqcqa), Fernando Moreu Ph.D, Chris Lippitt Ph.D, Xinxing Yuan

Publications

Transportation infrastructure construction quality control and quality assurance demands construction monitoring by field inspectors. Currently, these inspectors monitor infrastructure by measuring and photographing structures. These tasks allow them to assess any correction decision during construction or to inform about the quality of the construction process for the future. In order to promote and objective decisions obtained during infrastructure construction, the proposed research project developed and implemented a methodology to measure construction progress and compared it with the designed 3D shape, quantifying the difference. This proposed project includes implementation for the development of DOT standards that could be added in near …

The Impacts Of Increased Adverse Weather Events On Freight Movement, Kyung "Kate" Hyun Ph.D, Stephen P. Mattingly Ph.D, Mehrdad Arabi

Publications

Freight transportation is a major economic backbone of the United States and is vital to sustaining the nation’s economic growth. Ports, as one of the primary components of freight transportation and important means of integrating into the global economic system, have experienced significant growth and increased capacity during the past two decades. The study addresses an important national freight mobility goal to enhance the resilience of the port transportation operations in the event of extreme weather events. This study develops an adaptable resilience assessment framework that evaluates the impact of a disruptive event on transportation operations. The framework identifies dynamic …

Development Of Corrosion Inhibiting Geopolymers Based Cement For Transportation Infrastructure, Homero Castaneda, Miladin Radovic, Changkyu Kim, Oscar Huang

Publications

Geopolymers are gaining attention as affordable, sustainable, and eco-friendly replacement for Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) in concrete civil structures. More importantly, Geopolymer-based Cement (GPC) provide sustainable and environmentally friendly alternative to OPCs as GPC can be processed at room temperatures from aqueous solutions of waste materials (e.g., fly ash) or abounded natural sources (e.g., clay) and thus reduce significant CO₂ production associated with processing of OPC. Although, a lot of work has been done on improving mechanical properties of GPC over the last two decades, there are only a few studies on effects of GPC concrete on steel rebar …

Eco-Friendly Stabilization Of Sulfate-Rich Expansive Soils Using Geopolymers For Transportation Infrastructure, Xinbao Yu, Anand Puppala, Miladin Radovic, Sayantan Chakraborty, Jungyeon Jang, Oscar Huang

Publications

Traditional calcium-based stabilizers, such as lime, to stabilize sulfate-rich expansive soils, are lasting-challenges in geotechnical engineering. The biggest problem with using calcium-based stabilizers is that when calcium and water are exposed to sulfate-rich expansive soils, they form ettringite as an expansive mineral, which causes sulfate-induced heaving. The study aimed to investigate the feasibility of stabilizing sulfate-rich expansive soils using geopolymers for transportation infrastructure. Literature review on sulfate-induced heaving and sulfate-rich soils stabilized with geopolymers suggests a direction for how to stabilize sulfate soils using geopolymers. The engineering tests were conducted to determine the swell, shrinkage, and strength behavior of natural, …

Advanced Modeling And Design Methodology For Pavements Using Plasticity-Based Shakedown Theory, Shengli Chen, Chao Sun, Xu Wang, Zhiming Zhang

Publications

Pavement design is a process intended to find the most economical combination of layer thickness and material type for the pavement, taking into account the properties of the subgrade soil and the traffic to be carried during the service life of the road. The currently prevalent methods of pavement analysis and design, however, are more or less empirical in U.S., which possess the shortcoming that the important type of pavement distress of rutting related to the accumulation of plastic or permanent deformations cannot be effectively considered. This project proposes an exploratory study on the application of the plasticity theory-based shakedown …

Advancing Transportation Routing Decisions Using Riemannian Manifold Surfaces, Emre Tokgöz, Iddrisu Awudu, Saravanan Kuppusamy

Rohrer College of Business Departmental Research

We consider several real-world driving factors such as the time spent at traffic signs (e.g., yield signs and stop signs), speed limits, and the topology of the surface to develop realistic and accurate routing solutions. Though these factors increase the complexity of modeling, they provide the flexibility to evaluate the routing solutions from different perspectives: cost, distance, and time, to name a few. First, we develop a set of algorithms based on the Riemannian manifold surface (RMS) to factor in the Earth’s curvature to calculate distances. Second, we present a multiobjective, nonlinear, mixed-integer model (MINLP) that minimizes the distance traveled, …

Evaluating The Effectiveness Of The Pedestrian Safety Intervention Program: Behavioral And Observational Approach, Deep Patel

Theses and Dissertations

Pedestrians are considered as the most vulnerable road users. On a nationwide scale, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, there were 6,075 pedestrian fatalities and more than 85,000 pedestrian injuries as a result of traffic crashes in 2017. This study provides national and state pedestrian fatality statistics, a systematic literature review of pedestrian injury severity, observational (video-based) & behavioral (survey-based) evaluation of the Street-Smart NJ pedestrian safety intervention campaign. Street-Smart NJ is a public education, awareness, and behavioral change campaign program that aims to improve pedestrian safety by increasing awareness of pedestrian safety risks and improving compliance with …

Feasibility And Implementation Of Balanced Mix Design In Nebraska, Gabriel Nsengiyumva, Yong-Rak Kim, Jiong Hu

Nebraska Department of Transportation: Research Reports

Balanced mixture design is an alternative asphalt concrete design method that incorporates the performance of mixtures during the design. Balanced mixture design consists of performance test methods and performance criteria. Compared to the existing Superpave design method which mostly relies on volumetrics to design mixtures, balanced mixture design is more suited to account for performance improvements originating from reclaimed asphalt pavement and other foreign additives such as rejuvenators, warm- mix asphalt additives, polymers, and anti-stripping agents. This study investigated the feasibility of the implementation of balanced mixture design in Nebraska mixtures by exploring appropriate test methods (i.e., for fracture and …

A Study On The Performance Of University Malaya Campus Bus Service Using Dwell Time Model And Passenger Distribution Analysis, Gan Jia Jun

Student Works (2020-2029)

Accessibility and mobility are key to a sustainable transport system for the community within a green university campus. To encourage more sustainable transport usage, public transport such as campus bus service are provided for students to commute between academic buildings and residential areas on campus. The current operating timetable of the campus bus service is made by the Student Affairs Division based on the observation of bus service in the past few years. This research aimed to study the capability of the campus bus service in University of Malaya (UM) to accommodate the demand of students. A survey questionnaire was …

Real-Time Road Hazard Information System, Carlos Pena-Caballero, Dong-Chul Kim, Adolfo Gonzalez, Osvaldo Castellanos, Angel A. Cantu, Jungseok Ho

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Infrastructure is a significant factor in economic growth for systems of government. In order to increase economic productivity, maintaining infrastructure quality is essential. One of the elements of infrastructure is roads. Roads are means which help local and national economies be more productive. Furthermore, road damage such as potholes, debris, or cracks is the cause of many on-road accidents that have cost the lives of many drivers. In this paper, we propose a system that uses Convolutional Neural Networks to detect road degradations without data pre-processing. We utilize the state-of-the-art object detection algorithm, YOLO detector for the system. First, we …

Development And Testing Of A Bridge Rail For Low-Volume Roads, Scott K. Rosenbaugh, Jacob Delone, Ronald K. Faller, Robert W. Bielenberg

Nebraska Department of Transportation: Research Reports

A new steel bridge rail was developed for use on low-volume bridges. The railing consisted 31-in. tall, 12-gauge Wbeam guardrail mounted on S3x5.7 posts, which were supported by steel square-tube sockets attached to the side of the bridge deck. The sockets were to be attached to the steel C-channel that is typically placed along the edges of rural bridge decks in the state of Nebraska. The bridge railing was developed for use on both 7-in. thick cast in place decks and 12-in. thick prestressed concrete beam slabs.

Various welded and bolted socket-to-channel attachment designs were evaluated through dynamic bogie testing …

Characteristics Of Effective Metropolitan Areawide Public Transit: A Comparison Of European, Canadian, And Australian Case Studies, Michelle Derobertis, Christopher E. Ferrell, Richard W. Lee, John M. Eells

Mineta Transportation Institute

This research project investigates the replicable characteristics, policies, and practices of successful metropolitan areawide public transportation networks that contribute to high usage and make transit an effective competitor to the private motor vehicle. The research method involves the qualitative and quantitative analysis of ten international (non-U.S.) case studies. The principal methods employed were web-based research and data collection, as well as telephone interviews with transit agency staff or regional planners as needed. The case studies were limited to developed western countries with similar metropolitan conditions to those in the United States.

This research focuses on key characteristics of highly effective …

Lessons Learned From Six Different Structural Health Monitoring Systems On Highway Bridges, Abheetha Peiris, Charlie Sun, Issam E. Harik

Kentucky Transportation Center Faculty and Researcher Publications

Structural health monitoring has been utilized in numerous ways to investigate the performance and integrity of highway bridges. This paper highlights the use of six structural health monitoring systems, which were deployed to monitor distinct behaviors on six bridges in Kentucky. The structural health monitoring systems are as follows: (1) Over-height truck impact detection and monitoring on the I-64 over US 60 bridge, (2) Barge impact detection and monitoring on northbound US 41 over the Ohio River, (3) effectiveness of carbon fiber-reinforced polymer retrofit evaluation based on prestressed concrete I-girder crack movement on the I-65 elevated expressway in Louisville, (4) …

Longer Service Life Bridge Coatings, Danny Wells, Theodore Hopwood, Bobby Meade, Sudhir Palle

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC) has maintenance oversight responsibilities for approximately 1,100 steel bridges; it also helps local governments and other entities with maintenance painting on other steel bridges. Because maintaining steel bridges is costly, Cabinet officials asked Kentucky Transportation Center (KTC) researchers to identify materials and methods that will prolong their service lives. Steel bridges are uniquely vulnerable to deterioration resulting from exposure to atmospheric conditions (e.g. moisture, ultraviolet rays) and chlorides, the latter due to the application of deicing materials. This study examines two strategies for extending service lives. First, it appraises a novel method of hot dip …

Crash Data Analysis Tool: Research Report + User Guide, Eric R. Green, Paul Ross

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

This manual describes the Crash Data Analysis Tool (CDAT), which can be used by KYTC staff and the agency’s work partners to securely access crash datasets. CDAT users can query and download data using flags stored during post-processing. Unlike KyOPS, however, CDAT’s location data are validated using geographic coordinates and several of county, route, and milepoint fields to ensure crashes are properly geocoded. CDAT grants access to data and information that can be used in conjunction with KYTC’s Data Driven Safety Analysis (DDSA) Implementation Guide to conduct highway safety analysis numerous KYTC processes. Historically, the Cabinet’s Division of Traffic Operations …

Colloidal Silica: Cement Enhancing Admixture Product Evaluation, Lieska Halsey, David Hansen

Nebraska Department of Transportation: Research Reports

As Class F- fly ash (F-ash) becomes scarce, PCC engineers will look to other supplemental cementitious materials (SCM) to replace F-ash and its ASR mitigating properties. Colloidal silica (CS), or nano-silica, has been shown to mitigate ASR at certain replacement levels; however, CS cannot be a full replacement of F-ash. Engineers at the Nebraska Department of Transportation (NDOT) learned of CS from a presentation given by Intelligent Concrete, Inc. at the 2019 Nebraska Concrete Professionals Association Conference and decided to investigate the potential use of CS in NDOT concrete mix designs.

Evaluation Of Mixtures And Pavement Performance For Rehabilitation Methods, Mohammad Rahmani, Gabriel Nsengiyumva, Yong-Rak Kim, Jiong Hu

Nebraska Department of Transportation: Research Reports

Pavement rehabilitation practice involves milling an asphalt surface and placing a new layer. The incorporation of reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) mixtures brings cost savings and preserves the environment and natural resources. However, the use of recycled materials can compromise pavement performance, in particular, RAP can contribute to cracking because the mixtures with recycled materials become more brittle. In Nebraska, pavement rehabilitation has mostly been conducted by milling old 4-in. asphalt surface and placing a new 4-in. layer. Due to the potentially increased use of RAP mixtures for pavement rehabilitation, it is necessary to look into potential applications of RAP-induced overlay …

Supporting Bridge Management With Advanced Analysis And Machine Learning, Joshua Steelman, Francisco Garcia

Nebraska Department of Transportation: Research Reports

A supplemental Artificial Neural Network (ANN)-based tool was developed to support the Nebraska Department of Transportation (NDOT) in optimizing bridge management investments when choosing between refined modeling, field testing, retrofitting, or bridge replacement. Load ratings typically increase by approximately 15% to 20% when using detailed finite element analysis (FEA) instead of AASHTO approximate analysis methods. The ANN tool is implemented in an Excel spreadsheet to accept ten input parameters readily available to NDOT engineers performing typical load ratings, and predicts FEA- equivalent critical girder distribution factors (GDFs), removing unnecessary conservativism from approximate AASHTO GDFs, potentially justifying load posting removal for …

Analyzing The Safety Effects Of Edge Lane Roads For All Road Users, Marcial F. Lamera

Master's Theses

This thesis acts as one of the first studies that analyzes the safety effects of Edge Lane Roads (ELR) for all road users. This is important since ELRs can be a solution to many issues, such as alleviating congestion, increasing multimodality along roadways, and reducing maintenance costs. ELRs in both North America and Australia were observed. Starting with the North American ELRs, the following study designs were employed to estimate the safety of ELRs: (a) yoked comparison where each ELR installation was matched with at least two comparable 2-lane roads to serve as comparison sites and (b) an Empirical Bayes …

Development And Evaluation Of Low Cost 2-D Lidar Based Traffic Data Collection Methods, Ravi Jagirdar

Dissertations

Traffic data collection is one of the essential components of a transportation planning exercise. Granular traffic data such as volume count, vehicle classification, speed measurement, and occupancy, allows managing transportation systems more effectively. For effective traffic operation and management, authorities require deploying many sensors across the network. Moreover, the ascending efforts to achieve smart transportation aspects put immense pressure on planning authorities to deploy more sensors to cover an extensive network. This research focuses on the development and evaluation of inexpensive data collection methodology by using two-dimensional (2-D) Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) technology. LiDAR is adopted since it is …

Modeling Strategies For Structures Using Ductile Concrete Materials In Seismic Applications, Hasan Tariq

Dissertations

High-Performance Fiber-Reinforced Cementitious Composites (HPFRCCs) have made striking advances over the last two decades as an alternative material to replace ordinary concrete in regions of high seismic intensities. In contrast to ordinary concrete which has a brittle tensile response, HPFRCCs exhibit tensile strain hardening and multiple crack propagation. The application of HPFRCC in various structural components demonstrate effectiveness by improving damage resistance, deformation capacity, and energy absorption capacity. Despite these benefits, the failure mode of reinforced HPFRCC components is dominated by reinforcement fracture unlike traditional reinforced concrete components which fail in flexure by crushing. The unique behavior of HPFRCC members …

St. Mary And St. Anne Cathedral, Cork: An Optimum Heating Solution For Heritage Buildings?, Christopher Shiell, Roger P. West

Civil Engineering Research in Ireland 2020

Cathedrals and most churches are characterised by having large internal, undivided spaces and permeable building envelopes. They are often used little, intermittently, but predictably and, in spite of the fact that they are unique in still being largely used for the purpose for which they were built many centuries ago, they are now often used for additional purposes, for which they were never designed. These uses include concerts, graduation ceremonies, filming and a host of other uses all of which require a level of thermal comfort not envisaged by the original builders. Research was undertaken by the authors into the …

Challenges And Opportunities To Deep Retrofitting Of Traditional Fabric Buildings To Achieve Nearly Zero Energy Building (Nzeb), Maria Lopez Zambrano, Paul Kenny, Jamie Goggins

Civil Engineering Research in Ireland 2020

Many of our traditional buildings are disappearing or in danger of being under utilised because they are not comfortable for modern day living and do not meet our present day needs. If a building does not have a use, inevitably it deteriorates and eventually becomes a ruin or gets demolished. It is important to retrofit these buildings, which are part of our identity and can be powerful tourist attractions even though most of them are not listed. Some owners want to apply for retrofitting schemes and grants, but they are rejected because there are no standard solutions to achieve low …

Teaching Of Structural Analysis Into The Future, Dermot O'Dwyer

Civil Engineering Research in Ireland 2020

The engineering curriculum has always been full. In the past civil and structural engineers studied a wide variety of technical subjects within the broad field of engineering science and spent many hours working on design projects. Modern engineering curricula try to cover these areas while also dedicating more time to structured group-work, report writing and communication skills. Although students spend longer in college the number and range of technical fields that students must master is considerably larger than in the past. As a result the time available to any one topic area has reduced. At the same time the work …

Can Deap Help Us To Predict The Energy Demand And Indoor Temperature Of Homes Before And After Renovation? A Case Study From Dublin, Paul Moran, Jamie Goggins

Civil Engineering Research in Ireland 2020

Improving the energy efficiency of buildings via retrofitting is seen as one of the key mitigation measures to reducing the energy demand and carbon emissions of the built environment in Ireland. However, while energy efficiency retrofits for buildings are effective in theory, the energy savings estimated by statistical or engineering models can often be inaccurate. The Domestic Energy Assessment Procedure (DEAP) is the standard assessment procedure used for assessing the energy performance standard of residential buildings in Ireland. This paper examines the gas energy demand for space and water heating and the internal temperature profiles in contrast to DEAP estimates …