pacific nw transportation consortium region 10 Pactrans

Last month, PacTrans consortium partner University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) launched the Arctic Infrastructure Development Center (AIDC), which replaces the Alaska University Transportation Center, which had been based at UAF’s College of Engineering and Mines since it was established in 2005. With this move, UAF signals a need for an expanded scope of its transportation-focused research center to include a broader emphasis on Arctic infrastructure as climate change reshapes the far north.

“The changes are an effort to recast the research center to expand its focus beyond transportation to now include all arctic infrastructure (e.g. roads, bridges, airports, rail safety, buildings, utilities etc.) and is a more accurate reflection of the current research work carried out by the center,” said AIDC director, Billy Connor. “We believe the name change will also better position the center for future federal, state, and privately funded research opportunities.”

Per the new center’s website, the AIDC will focus on developing sound environmentally and socio-culturally appropriate designs for infrastructure in Alaska and other cold regions, addressing: (1) transportation including highway, aviation, rail and pipelines, (2) utility infrastructure such as gas distribution systems, (3) vertical infrastructure including residential and commercial buildings, (4) community planning including understanding the impact of thawing permafrost on communities in the arctic and sub-arctic, and (5) development of techniques to address the impacts of climate change on infrastructure.

“We’re starting to see that many of the technologies we have been employing may not be applicable to the future with climate change,” said Connor. “We realize we need to look at how we make course adjustments in engineering under these conditions. It had become clear that many of the challenges in designing cold-region roads and airports are present in other types of infrastructure.”

Several existing UAF laboratories will work on AIDC research. These include labs at UAF’s Institute of Northern Engineering that test frozen soils, study traffic and safety, advance the design of asphalt and other materials, and test building technology. Research will also be conducted at the high-bay large-scale testing facility and cold rooms at UAF’s Engineering Learning and Innovation Facility.

“A lot of the things we were doing under transportation are synergistic with the change in our missions,” he said. “We were studying these things already, and this adds a little more depth and breadth to that research.”