The Soils Lab Road School is a new collaboration between the WSU Geotechnical Engineering Laboratory (GEL) and WSDOT. In response to a direct request from WSDOT, the GEL is creating an itinerant school to support WSDOT staff in developing expertise on key topics related to geotechnical engineering. These topics include fundamentals of soil mechanics and advanced geotechnical testing, a mechanics-based approach to the analysis of soil behavior, and the rigorous interpretation of experimental data sets to inform geotechnical characterization and design. The Soils Lab Road School is underpinned by a hybrid approach to geotechnical engineering education that involves rigorous teaching of fundamentals along with robust hands-on experiential methods of learning in a geotechnical laboratory.

Principle Investigator: J. Antonio H. Carraro, Civil and Environmental Engineering, WSU
Sponsor: WSDOT
WSDOT Technical Contact: Andrew Fiske

Managing rock slopes adjacent to highway infrastructure requires considering possible slope instability and designing mitigation efforts to prevent rockfall damage to the roadway and travelers. When engineers design a slope scaling program, rockfall catchment area, or rockfall barrier, they generally use a rockfall simulation model to predict the potential path and distribution of falling rocks. However, current 2D models tend to significantly overestimate the length of falling blocks’ travel paths, which leads to more expensive and extensive protection than required for slope maintenance. Recent studies have demonstrated that rockfall models built in game engine environments can replicate the observed pathways and fragmentation sizes of rockfall events. The ultimate goal of this pooled fund study, led by WSDOT, is to develop “game-engine”-based  3D rockfall simulation software, based on data from LiDAR or photogrammetry models, that has the potential to more realistically model rockfall fragmentation and large block interaction.

Transportation Pooled Fund details

Principal Investigators:
Joseph Wartman, Civil and Environmental Engineering, UW
Jean Hutchinson, Geological Science and Engineering, Queen’s University
Michael Olsen, Civil and Construction Engineering, Oregon State University

Sponsors: WSDOT
with pooled funds from Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, New York, Tennessee, and Texas
WSDOT Technical Monitor: Marc Fish
WSDOT Project Manager: Jon Peterson
Scheduled completion; June 2026