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Current Projects

Standard Test Procedures for Ice Melting Capacity of De-Icers

Transportation departments commonly use chemicals on roadways before, during, and after storms to improve road conditions. These chemicals help prevent icing, prevent snowpack from bonding to the pavement, break up compacted snowpack, ease snow removal, and more. While sodium chloride is most commonly used by transportation agencies in solid and liquid (brine) form, many additives, alternatives, and performance-enhancing products and blends are available. Traditional laboratory tests of these materials sacrifice some or all realism by providing controlled, consistent testing conditions. Sophisticated laboratory tests may quantify material performance in terms of friction, persistence or residual performance, snow coverage, reduction in the snow-pavement bond, or some other, more realistic performance measure.  However, the complexity, expense, and questionable repeatability of such methods are significant.  To address this issue, this project will devise a standardized laboratory test that will allow agencies to realistically and robustly assess and compare the performance of de-icers. That information will allow budget-pressed transportation departments to make data-driven procurement decisions. 

Principal Investigator: Xianming Shi, Civil and Environmental Engineering, WSU

Sponsors:
Minnesota Department of Transportation
Clear Roads Pooled Fund

Scheduled completion: September 2023

Evaluation of On-Site and In-situ Treatment Alternatives for Contaminated Soils

Construction activities in highway right of ways (ROWs) can result in the release of toxic and persistent contaminants. Highway construction may lead to the discovery of inorganic (lead, mercury, asbestos) and organic (petroleum hydrocarbons) hazardous wastes that have been spilled, illegally or improperly disposed, or leaked. The responsibility then often falls to the transportation agency to clean the contaminated property. Treating contaminated ROW soils for beneficial reuse as construction fill is a proactive strategy for dealing with contaminated property. However, the best cost-effective decontamination treatments that do not cause significant construction delays have yet to be identified. Cost-effective, usable solutions customized for the Illinois Department of Transportation’s (IDOT) time, space, and soil volume constraints are needed. The objectives of this project are to 1) characterize the nature and extent of IDOT ROW soil contamination; 2) evaluate feasible treatment alternatives for IDOT soils; and 3) develop a customized, rapid, on-site treatment approach that will allow IDOT to repurpose contaminated construction soils for on-site use as fill. Using this rapid treatment approach will allow IDOT to divert volumes of waste from Illinois landfills, reduce carbon footprints, lower environmental risks, and achieve substantial cost-savings.

Project Investigators:
Amanda Hohner
Idil Akin
Xianming Shi
Indranil Chowdhury
Richard Watts
Adam Phillips
Civil and Environmental Engineering, WSU

Sponsor: Illinois Center for Transportation
Scheduled completion:  January 2021

Performance of Steel Jacket Retrofitted Reinforced Concrete Bridge Columns in Cascadia Subduction Zone Earthquakes

In 1991 WSDOT began a seismic retrofit program for state bridges that continues today. WSDOT’s primary method for retrofitting concrete bridge columns is steel jackets. The USGS recently released updated hazard maps that require structural design in Western Washington to plan for increased levels of seismicity, reflecting the potential for the Cascadia Subduction Zone (CSZ) to generate large magnitude, long duration earthquakes. The ability of WSDOT’s bridge columns retrofitted with steel jackets to resist this increased earthquake hazard level is not well understood, and questions remain regarding the level of damage that would be sustained in a CSZ earthquake. If the level of retrofit is not sufficient to prevent collapse, the millions of dollars expended by WSDOT on retrofit will not deliver the intended results. This project will characterize the expected performance, ductility capacity, and collapse probability of steel jacket retrofitted bridge columns in CSZ earthquakes and will develop a simple tool that WSDOT can use to assess whether a standard steel jacket retrofit is adequate to resist a design level earthquake for each bridge column in its inventory.

Project Investigators:
Christopher Motter, Civil and Environmental Engineering, WSU
Adam Phillips, Civil and Environmental Engineering, WSU

Sponsor: WSDOT
WSDOT Technical Monitor: Bijan Khaleghi
WSDOT Project Manager: Mustafa Mohamedali
Scheduled completion:  September 2021

Linear Scheduling Evaluation and Best Practices, Phase 2

Traditional project scheduling methods provide overwhelming amounts of data for large projects. This can make the task of fully communicating project information to diverse audiences and communities challenging. In addition, WSDOT’s design teams, working with multiple and varied partners and internal specialists, need to be able to quickly grasp the nature of a project, its context, and the work activities, locations, and timing that will occur. Linear scheduling has the potential to be an extremely effective tool in tracking cost, duration, and appropriate justification and can enhance WSDOT’s current processes related to project cost risk assessment and value engineering. Other industries regularly use linear scheduling. Phase 1 of this study conducted a literature review of best practices related to linear scheduling for heavy civil engineering projects. In Phase II, the researchers will develop project performance metrics to quantify the benefits of using a linear scheduling program. They will also investigate available tools and software to provide vendor selection guidelines. The findings will build confidence in the adoption and use of a linear scheduling program to further improve project metrics.

Principal Investigator: Amy Kim, Civil and Environmental Engineering, UW
Sponsor: WSDOT
WSDOT Technical Monitor: Mark Gabel
WSDOT Project Manager: Mustafa Mohamedali
Scheduled completion: December 2021

Extending the SR 522 SPaT Challenge to Active Transportation Users

This project will give researchers hands-on experience with the connected transportation environment and interactions among pedestrians, bicycles, vehicles, and traffic signals. Specifically, this project will integrate data from traffic control system signal phase and timing (SPaT) broadcasts along SR 522 north of Seattle within an application (app) that pedestrians and bicyclists will use on their mobile devices. Pedestrians will be able to use the app to request right of way and receive information on the status of the pedestrian signal. Bicycle users will be able to indicate their presence to actuate the traffic signal. All users will also be able to send/receive better quality information on their location within a crosswalk, bicycle lane, pathway, or vehicle travel lane. The project not only has the potential to improve intersection operations but has clear implications for helping increase the safety of all non-motorized road users, particularly those with vision impairments and other disabilities.

Principal Investigator: Yinhai Wang, Civil and Environmental Engineering, UW
Sponsor: WSDOT
WSDOT Technical Monitor: Justin Belk
WSDOT Project Manager: Doug Brodin
Scheduled completion: June 2023

Characterization of Under-Served Population Perceptions and Mobility Needs in Connected-Vehicle and Smarter City Environments—Phase 6

Residents of smaller and low-density communities, as well as the elderly and disabled, have few alternatives to private car travel. While new on-demand mobility services, connected vehicle technologies, and smarter city initiatives are reshaping travel in cities, those in smaller towns and rural areas, those without smart phones and communication network access, and lower-income travelers lacking a variety of additional resources are at risk of being left behind. The goal of this outreach effort is to better understand and characterize under-served populations’ perceptions of mobility needs in urban and rural environments of the Pacific Northwest and to inform those communities about the opportunities for mobility improvement that a smart city could provide. This project will identify and work with representatives from different mobility under-served groups in Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and Alaska and will develop interactive materials to inform and educate the under-served groups about the potential improved mobility opportunities in connected-vehicle and smarter city environments. They will also collect data from the participants on their mobility challenges, perceptions, and experiences and map those data within a GIS database. They will then use the data to help identify smart city implications and potential solutions.

Principal Investigators:
Ahmed Abdel-Rahim, University of Idaho
David Hurwitz, Oregon State University
Eric Jessup, Civil and Environmental Engineering, WSU
Jeff Ban, Civil and Environmental Engineering, UW
Billy Connor, University of Alaska Fairbanks

Sponsor: PacTrans
Scheduled completion: March 2023

Seismic Retrofit of Hollow Piles

The overall goal of the proposed research is to design, and prove experimentally, methods to seismically retrofit prestressed concrete hollow pile-columns used in bridges.  WSDOT maintains approximately 25 bridges that are supported on hollow precast, prestressed concrete pile-columns. Most were constructed in the 1960s. The seismic performance of these bridges is in now question because the hollow sections have been shown to have little flexural ductility, which may cause them to fail prematurely. This project will determine the flexural strength and deformation capacity of a typical as-built, hollow, precast, pre-tensioned pile-column before retrofitting. Researchers will then develop a retrofit method, including design procedures, for the potential plastic hinge at the cap beam connection, and they will develop implementation procedures for the retrofit method. In addition, this project will create a simple numerical modeling tool that will allow WSDOT to rank existing bridges according to the risk that they pose to help it prioritize bridge retrofitting.

Principal Investigators:
John Stanton, Civil and Environmental Engineering, UW
Paolo Calvi, Civil and Environmental Engineering, UW

Sponsor: WSDOT
WSDOT Technical Monitor: Bijan Khaleghi
WSDOT Project Manager: Doug Brodin
Scheduled completion: December 2019

Moving to Health: How Changing the Built Environment Impacts Weight and Glycemic Control

Where people live affects their health, weight, and well-being. Studies have pointed to multiple links between residential location, aspects of the surrounding built environment, and the neighborhood prevalence of obesity and type 2 diabetes (T2D). Among the physical built environment features that have been proposed to lower obesity and T2D risk are neighborhood walkability to support daily activity, access to healthy food sources such as supermarkets and farmers’ markets, fewer neighborhood fast foods or convenience stores, and more parks and trails. This study is using data from Kaiser Permanente Washington (KPWA), a large, integrated health insurance and care delivery system. By attaching a geographic context to anonymized KPWA electronic medical records in King County, Wash., researchers are examining the impacts of individual-level neighborhood built environment factors on body weight and glycemic control over a 12-year period. As a subcontract to the Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute, the UW Urban Form Lab is providing necessary data on land-use and mix, transportation infrastructure, neighborhood composition, and traffic conditions. Armed with the study’s findings, urban planners and policymakers will be able to target different built environment features for intervention and help to create demand for those neighborhood features that are most likely to support health.

Principal Investigators:
Anne Vernez Moudon, Urban Design and Planning, UW
Philip Hurvitz, Urban Design and Planning, UW

Sponsors:
National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases
Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute

Scheduled completion: June 2022

TWIN Study of Environment, Lifestyle Behaviors, and Health

This project builds on the Washington State Twin Registry, which includes some 8,000 twin pairs participating in a range of medical studies. The use of twins allows researchers to control for genetic and childhood social and environmental factors in ways that are not possible in studies based on singletons. This project is using a twin design and cutting edge measurement tools and spatial data to examine how the built environment is associated with physical activity and eating habits, and how aspects of the built environment affect physical activity and nutrition in its association with body mass index. Researchers at the UW Urban Form Lab are providing and analyzing data on development densities, land uses, transportation systems, and socio-demographics characteristics of areas of interest in Washington state, as well as processing data from accelerometers, GPS, and travel diaries to produce detailed, time-stamped Life Logs. From the Life Logs, physical activity and walking bouts will be identified, as will eating and food shopping episodes. Further processing of these data will include the identification of mobility patterns and activity spaces over the course of 7-day assessment periods.  As twins living in the same locations are compared to those living separately, it will be possible to isolate the effects of the built environment on physical activity

Principal Investigators:
Glen E. Duncan, College of Medicine, WSU
Anne Vernez Moudon, Urban Design and Planning, UW

Sponsor: National Institutes of Health
Scheduled completion: March 2024

RAP Reset: Responsibly Optimizing Recycled Materials Use in HMA and Pavement Performance Life

Concerns with the performance of hot mix asphalt (HMA) that contains recycled materials have recently become the focal point of the asphalt industry. Recycled materials used in HMA in Washington may include reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP), reclaimed asphalt shingles (RAS), and recycled engine oil bottoms (REOB). In the late 2000’s recycled materials use increased as the economy crashed, market competition increased and margins decreased, and virgin asphalt binder cost increased significantly. However, the impacts of that increased usage are beginning to be better understood, and transportation agencies are determining that the durability of HMA may have been compromised as a result. The primary objective of this project is to increase the understanding of the effects of recycled materials on HMA performance and durability to enhance WSDOT’s HMA materials selection, mix design process, and standard specifications. The results are intended to help WSDOT modify its overall recycled materials strategy so that it is informed by current national best practices, takes into account observable local issues and test results, and leads to more durable HMA pavements.

Principal Investigator: Steve Muench, Civil and Environmental Engineering, UW
Sponsor: WSDOT
WSDOT Technical Monitor: Joe DeVol
WSDOT Project Manager: Jon Peterson
Scheduled Completion: March 2021

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