What's New in Pavements

The Institute for Transportation at Iowa State University has released a report that evaluates the level of compaction at the longitudinal joint to determine the effects of segregation on joint performance.

The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has released a fact sheet provides an overview of data from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System and General Estimates System for a variety of areas including restraint use, children pedestrians, and bicyclists.

Austroads has released a report that highlights a new wheel-tracker and compactor test that was developed and manufactured for unbound granular material characterization.

TRB will conduct a webinar on May 23, 2013 from 2:00 p.m.- 4:00 p.m. ET that will explore the basics of an economic analysis tool called the Life-Cycle Cost Analysis (LCCA) and how it can be used in the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century (MAP-21) legislation. Participants must register in advance of the webinar, and there is a fee for non-TRB Sponsor employees. A certificate for 2 Pr...

TRB standing committees have issued  calls for papers for the TRB 93rd Annual Meeting, January 12-16, 2014, in Washington, D.C, and the Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board (TRR). While papers addressing any relevant aspect of transportation research will be considered, some committees are soliciting papers in specific subject areas to help potential...

The 2013 series marks the 50th year of TRB’s peer-reviewed journal, which debuted as the Highway Research Record in 1963; became the Transportation Research Record in 1974, with Number 480; and added the subtitle, Journal of the Transportation Research Board, in 2000, with Number 1653. In all, TRB has published more than 25,000 papers in volumes of the TRR Journal and continues to build on its ...

VTI, the Swedish National Road and Transport Institute, has released a report that describes a series of measurements and calculations for determining expected rumble strip hits and sound levels.

The Center for Transportation Research at the University of Texas-Austin has released a report that evaluates Texas U-Beams including measurements of their concrete curing temperatures in square and skewed end blocks and establishment of the vertical shear capacity of their standard section loads.

TRB’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Innovations Deserving Exploratory Analysis (IDEA) Final Report for NCHRP-IDEA Project 151: Development of a Simple Test to Determine the Low Temperature Strength of Asphalt Mixtures and Binders explores low temperature strength tests on asphalt mixture and asphalt binder beam specimens with the bending beam rheometer.

As part of the SHRP2 Tuesdays Webinar Series, TRB will conduct a webinar on June 11, 2013 from 2:00 p.m.- 3:30 p.m. ET that will explore the project Performance Specifications for Rapid Renewal, which addresses the obstacles of defining fair and meaningful specification requirements when implementing rapid renewal performance specifications . Participants must register in advance of the webinar...

TRB’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Innovations Deserving Exploratory Analysis (IDEA) Final Report for NCHRP-IDEA Project 143: The Guayule Plant a Renewable Domestic Source of Binder Materials for Flexible Pavement Mixtures explores the design of a flexible pavement mixture produced with little to no virgin petroleum based binder.

The New Zealand Transport Agency has released a report that investigates the effect of road roughness and macrotexture on skid resistance measurements by using a device called the GripTester.

The New Zealand Transport Agency has released a report that identifies possible changes in using thin layers of asphalt so that improvements in performance could be obtained.

The Institute of Transport Economics in the Norwegian Centre for Transport Research has released a report that reviews wayfinding and makes recommendations for its improvement in transport systems, with an emphasis on inclusive design and tactile paving.

The World Road Association has released a report that explains the conceptual framework for managing road noise, fundamentals of tire-pavement noise, and strategies for pavement-noise reduction. This report is available without a fee after logging on to the site.

The Virginia Center for Transportation Innovation and Research has released a report that develops a structural index for network-level pavement evaluation as a way to use the pavement’s structural condition in pavement management applications.

TRB conducted a webinar on May 8, 2013 from 2:00 p.m.- 3:30 p.m. ET that explored strategies for improving the quality of pavement management data and techniques for evaluating a pavement program’s overall data quality. Contact Reggie Gillum at RGillum@nas.edu for instructions on receiving a link to the recorded webinar. This webinar was organized by the TRB Standing Committee on Pavement ...

The Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) has released a report that reviews research on hot mix asphalt (HMA) mixture characterization for a mechanistic-empirical pavement design guide, discusses MDOT's HMA testing program, and explains laboratory testing of samples collected.

TRB conducted a webinar on April 30, 2013 from 2:00 p.m.- 4:00 p.m. ET that will provide an overview of basic, promising practices for concrete paving, and the effects these practices may have on long term pavement performance. Contact Reggie Gillum at RGillum@nas.edu for instructions on accessing a link to the recorded webinar.  Webinar Presenters: Michael E. Ayers, Global Pavement Consul...

The New Zealand Transport Agency has released a report that discusses the effects of environmental factors, such as rainfall and detritus, on the variation of short- and long-term skid resistance.

Austroads has released a report that presents results of a laboratory testing program conducted between 2010 and 2012 in support of the validation trial of warm mix asphalt and hotmix asphalt. This report is available without a fee after logging on to the site.

The Montana Department of Transportation has released a report that discusses the extent to which crack sealing milled pavement prior to overlay will deter the migration of transverse cracking when compared to a pavement that receives no crack sealing treatment.

TRB’s second Strategic Highway Research Program (SHRP 2) Report S2-R06E-RR-1: Real-Time Smoothness Measurements on Portland Cement Concrete Pavements During Construction explores real-time smoothness measuring technologies for concrete paving. For the purposes of the report, real-time smoothness refers to measuring and evaluating the concrete pavement surface profile during construction along t...

Illinois Center for Transportation at the University of Illinois has released a report that discusses techniques to improve hot-mix asphalt overlays through the use of special additives and innovative surfacing technologies.

Illinois Center for Transportation at the University of Illinois has released a report that considers four new asphalt concrete mixtures that use locally available aggregates as a way to use a cost-effective mixture that also improves pavement performance.

TRB is cosponsoring the International Symposium on Non-Destructive Testing in Civil Engineering (NDT-CE) on September 15-17, 2015, in Berlin, Germany. The symposium is designed to bring together experts from all areas in this fast developing area of research and application. Researchers; manufacturers; service providers; owners of structures; and those active in training, validation, and standa...

Low-temperature thermal cracking is a major type of asphalt pavement failure. State departments of transportation (DOTs) allocate significant financial resources to repair or replace cracked pavements. Properly grading asphalt binders for the expected climatic environment, however, can minimize premature pavement failure from thermal cracking. To enhance the grading process, an asphalt binder c...

TRB’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Research Results Digest 372: Sensitivity Evaluation of MEPDG Performance Prediction summarizes the results of a study that evaluates the sensitivity of pavement performance predicted by the Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Design Guide (MEPDG) to the values of the design inputs.

VTI—the Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute, has released a report that explores wear and formation of inhalable particles from concrete coating, concrete coating with titanium dioxide, and a reference asphalt, all tested under controlled conditions. This report is written in Swedish with an English summary.

TRB is cosponsoring the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) 2nd Transportation and Development Institute Congress (T&DI) in June 2014 in Orlando, Florida. The meeting is designed to bring together all of the disciplines of transportation and infrastructure development, including aviation. The aviation component includes discussions on airfield geometry, safety, Geographic Information...