Multi Institution Projects Year 2 (2013-2014)

Behavior of Drilled Shafts with High-Strength Reinforcement and Casing


PI: Armin W. Stuedlein (OSU), armin.stuedlein@oregonstate.edu
Co-Investigators: Pedro Arduino (UW)
Dates: 07/01/2013 – 6/30/2015
Final Project Report: PacTrans-24-OSU-Stuedlein

Drilled shafts provide significant geotechnical resistance for support of highway bridges, and are used throughout the States of Oregon and Washington to meet their structural foundation requirements. Due to changes in construction methods and poor near-surface soils, the use of permanent steel casing for drilled shaft installation has increased. However, geotechnical design models for axial and lateral resistance of drilled shafts are largely based on soil-concrete interfaces, not soil-steel interfaces associated with large diameter steel casing. Read More

Performance-Measure Based Asset Management Tool for Rural Freight Mobility in the Pacific Northwest


PI: Jeremy Sage (WSU), jlsage@wsu.edu
Co-Investigators: Ahmed Abdel-Rahim (UI), Kenneth Casavant (WSU)
Dates: 07/01/2013 – 6/30/2015
Final Project Report: PacTrans-40-WSU-Sage

Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century (MAP-21) establishes national objectives to increase productivity and economic efficiency of the nation’s freight infrastructure. The recent passage of MAP-21 has placed an emphasis on integrating asset and performance management tools to help transportation agencies better manage the critical transportation infrastructure. Infrastructure performance management expands the more traditional definition of Asset Management to include measurement and reporting of how those assets achieve their targeted operational objectives. Read More

A Platform for Proactive Risk-based Slope Asset Management Phase II


PI: Keith Cunningham (UAF), kwcunningham@alaska.edu
Co-Investigators: Michael J. Olsen (OSU), Joseph Wartman (UW)
Dates: 11/1/2013 – 7/31/2015
Final Project Report: PacTrans-42-UAF-Cunningham

Unstable slopes, including coherent landslides, rock falls, and debris flows, present significant risk to safety and regional commerce. This risk is a long-term concern that highway managers contend with on an on-going basis. The widespread spatial and temporal distribution of these landslides poses a number of challenges when deciding when, where, and how to allocate funds for mitigation efforts to maintain these assets. This challenge is compounded by the high level of effort currently required to survey, inspect and sample slopes for the purpose of condition assessment as part of an asset management program. Read More

High Performance Bridge Systems for Lifeline Corridors in the Pacific Northwest


PI: Marc Eberhard (UW), eberhard@uw.edu
Co-Investigators: Andre Barbosa (OSU), Dawn Lehman (UW), Charles Roeder (UW), John Stanton (UW), David Trejo (OSU)
Dates: 08/01/2013 – 7/31/2015
Final Project Report: PacTrans-45-UW-Eberhard

Reinforced concrete bridges in seismic regions have changed little since the mid-1970s, when ductile details were first introduced. Nearly all bents (intermediate supports) are constructed of cast-in-place reinforced concrete and conventional reinforcing steel. Such bridges have served the Pacific Northwest (PNW) well in the past, but to meet current performance expectations, new structural systems are needed to improve: seismic resilience, speed of construction, durability, and life-cycle costs. Read More

Data Collection and Spatial Interpolation of Bicycle and Pedestrian Data


PI: Michael Lowry (UI), mlowry@uidaho.edu
Co-Investigators: Yinhai Wang (UW), Mike Dixon (UI), Ahmed-Abdel Rahim (UI), Mark Hallenbeck (UW)
Dates: 07/01/2013 – 6/30/2015
Final Project Report: PacTrans-48-UI-Lowery

It is very difficult to measure safety without knowing how many people use a facility. For this reason, millions of dollars and decades of research have sought to estimate and forecast travel demand, such as through the ubiquitous 4-step model. Unfortunately, existing methods are lousy for estimating pedestrian and bicycle volumes. In fact, most agencies forego expensive, data-intensive models and instead resort to simply using expert judgment when estimating pedestrian and bicycle volumes. Cities and state DOTs struggle to collect and utilize pedestrian and bicycle data in an effective and meaningful way. Read More

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