Project Details
06/15/14
01/31/15
Iowa State University
Midwest Transportation Center
USDOT/OST-R
Researchers
Jian Chu
Zhiyou Wen
About the research
Road repair is an expensive operation every year. This cost can be greatly reduced if waste materials from the mining and biofuel industries can be used to substitute conventional materials for road repair or construction. The objective of this project is to develop methods to produce a new construction material, biocement, using waste products and apply the new material for road repair and construction.
Two types of waste were used in this study. One is limestone fines produced from a limestone mine in Iowa. Another is organic acids, a byproduct produced from a pyrolysis-based biofuel manufacturing process. The limestone fines and organic acids can be used to produce biocement under ambient temperature in an inexpensive way. The cost-effective biocement can be used as a substitute for expensive cement for road repairs and construction. Biocement grout, or biogrout, can be injected directly into cavities or cracks in pavement for road repair. As the viscosity of biogrout is low, biogrout can penetrate better into the road pavement than cement grout. Biocement-mixed aggregate can be used for road base or subbase construction. Biocement solutions can also be applied directly on shoulders as a stabilizer or on unpaved roads as a dust control agent.
The focus of this project is on the development of cost-effective biocement products and their effectiveness for road repair. Once the methods for biocement production and applications are established in laboratory scale, field experiments can be carried out as a follow-up study.
Funding Sources:
Iowa State University
Midwest Transportation Center
USDOT/OST-R ($24,998.00)
Total: $24,998.00
Contract Number: DTRT13-G-UTC37
Researchers
About the research
Utilizing enhanced visualization in transportation planning and design gained popularity in the last decade. This work aimed at demonstrating the concept of utilizing a highly immersive, virtual reality simulation engine for creating dynamic, interactive, full-scale, three-dimensional (3D) models of highway infrastructure.
For this project, the highway infrastructure element chosen was a two-way, stop-controlled intersection (TWSCI).
VirtuTrace, a virtual reality simulation engine developed by the principal investigator, was used to construct the dynamic 3D model of the TWSCI. The model was implemented in C6, which is Iowa State University’s Cave Automatic Virtual Environment (CAVE).
Representatives from the Institute of Transportation at Iowa State University, as well as representatives from the Iowa Department of Transportation, experienced the simulated TWSCI. The two teams identified verbally the significant potential that the approach introduces for the application of next-generation simulated environments to road design and safety evaluation.
The investigator is working with the Iowa State University Construction Engineering Highway Design course instructor on developing educational modules that utilize the developments.
Funding Sources:
Iowa State University ($45,554.00)
Midwest Transportation Center
USDOT/OST-R ($24,991.00)
Total: $70,545.00
Contract Number: DTRT13-G-UTC37
Researchers
Tom Maze
Michael Crum
Garrett Burchett
About the research
This project explores the user costs and benefits of winter road closures. Severe winter weather makes travel unsafe and dramatically increases crash rates. When conditions become unsafe due to winter weather, road closures should allow users to avoid crash costs and eliminate costs associated with rescuing stranded motorists. Therefore, the benefits of road closures are the avoided safety costs. The costs of road closures are the delays that are imposed on motorists and motor carriers who would have made the trip had the road not been closed. This project investigated the costs and benefits of road closures and found that evaluating the benefits and costs is not as simple as it appears.
To better understand the costs and benefits of road closures, the project investigates the literature, conducts interviews with shippers and motor carriers, and conducts case studies of road closures to determine what actually occurred on roadways during closures. The project also estimates a statistical model that relates weather severity to crash rates. Although, the statistical model is intended to illustrate the possibility to quantitatively relate measurable and predictable weather conditions to the safety performance of a roadway. In the future, weather conditions such as snow fall intensity, visibility, etc., can be used to make objective measures of the safety performance of a roadway rather than relying on subjective evaluations of field staff.
The review of the literature and the interviews clearly illustrate that not all delays (increased travel time) are valued the same. Expected delays (routine delays) are valued at the generalized costs (value of the driver?s time, fuel, insurance, wear and tear on the vehicle, etc.), but unexpected delays are valued much higher because they result in interruption of synchronous activities at the trip?s destination. To reduce the costs of delays resulting from road closures, public agencies should communicate as early as possible the likelihood of a road closure.
Funding Sources:
Iowa State University
Midwest Transportation Consortium ($58,591.00)
Total: $58,591.00
