2/3/2022 McCall Macomber
Illinois Center for Transportation is pleased to announce two research projects led by CEE at Illinois professors.
Written by McCall Macomber
By McCall Macomber, Illinois Center for Transportation
Illinois Center for Transportation is pleased to announce two research projects led by University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering professors.
Prototype Electron-Beam-Accelerator-Modified Asphalt Binder
A significant portion of a highway’s or airfield’s budget is spent on pavement maintenance and rehabilitation, with cracking frequently causing damage to airfield pavements.
Imad-Al-Qadi, UIUC Bliss Professor of Engineering and ICT director, will assess a technique to heal cracks in existing pavement and improve asphalt binder — a gluing material that holds aggregate together — for new pavements and overlays.
Al-Qadi is working with teams from the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center, led by Ben Cox, as well as the Department of Energy’s Fermilab, led by Charlie Cooper.
Their goal is to develop an electron beam accelerator prototype that can be used to promote crosslinking in asphalt binder to improve its properties, especially healing cracks.
The first step to developing this prototype is to create a modified binder that can enhance a pavement’s durability, allowing it to endure higher traffic loads, traffic volumes and extreme temperatures better than regular binders.
Increasing durability will minimize rutting and cracking potential as well as reduce the need for early and frequent maintenance and rehabilitation of pavements, resulting in substantial savings.
The effort will wrap up September 2022.
Reflective Cracking Model for Airport Asphalt Overlay Design
Reflective cracking — in which cracks from underneath pavement layers spread to a pavement’s surface — can cause pavement to deteriorate prematurely.
This Federal Aviation Administration project seeks to develop models that can be used as a decision criterion to prevent reflective cracking in airport pavements.
Imad Al-Qadi and Armando Duarte, UIUC Nathan Newmark Professor, assist Hasan Ozer, Arizona State University associate professor and UIUC alum, who leads the project.
Al-Qadi and Duarte will develop a design protocol for hot-mix asphalt overlays — a method where a new asphalt layer is placed over a deteriorating one — to help control reflective cracking in airport pavements.
Finite element models and machine-learning techniques developed at UIUC will be used to support data collected at ASU.
Artificial Neural Networks trained with synthetic data generated by many advanced finite element models can provide a pathway to mechanistically informed and calibrated design protocols for hot-mix asphalt overlays of airfields.
The developed protocol will be incorporated into FAA’s thickness design software, FAARFIELD, and will help build longer-lasting and better-performing airport pavements.
The project will end March 2024.