NJ Transportation Research Ideas Capital Improvement & Infrastructure

From India and Scotland, to Texas USA, plastic additives are utilized in patching potholes, repairing cracks, and could be mixed with bitumen to create full paved roads. This action could help with a reduction of plastic waste, a decrease of material cost, a stronger durability with roads, and done without causing leeching or harm to the environment.

Strain-hardening cementitious composites (SHCC) is a family of high-performance fiber-reinforced cementitious composites that have high tensile ductility and multiple cracking behavior in tension. Compared with normal concrete, the tensile ductility of SHCC is typically 300-500 times higher. Cracked SHCC has retained resistance to tension, and generates densely-distributed microcracks rather than a limited number of wide... more »

The use of high-performance concrete (HPC) in bridge deck and pavement is increasing because of its enhanced durability and longer service life. The mixture design of HPC involves the use of relatively low water-to-binder ratio (w/b), supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs), and chemical admixtures. Securing high durability necessitates proper curing of the HPC to ensure adequate hydration of the cementitious system.... more »

Road is essential for our economy and way of life. According to the 2016 Report Card for New Jersey's Infrastructure, the overall rating for the road condition in New Jersey is D+, indicating that New Jersey's road is in poor condition. There is an urgent need to innovate the pavement materials to improve the road condition in a cost-effective way.
Recent research shows that pervious concrete has great potential for... more »

Inspired by the Lego units as toys, we propose to construct re-configurable engineering structures using prefabricated standardized blocks.

The blocks are designed for assembly of large-scale engineering structures through dry jointing schemes using construction robots. The blocks will be made of high-performance fiber-reinforced cementitious composites (HPFRCC) with high mechanical properties and long-term durability.... more »

Given the significant savings in fuel consumption (due to improved air dynamics) and the relatively simple control schemes required (compared to other autonomous vehicle scenarios) truck platooning is expected to be one of the first applications of autonomous vehicles. Although much work is ongoing in the realm of control schemes, communication protocols, signage, driver training, and policy, little (if any) attention... more »

While steel girders have a lot of advantages and are widely used in transportation infrastructure, welded joints in the steel girders under cyclic loading are subjected to fatigue cracks, which can significantly compromise the service life of the steel girders.
Recently, two innovative approaches have been presented to improve the fatigue resistance of welded joints. The first approach is to use locally-thickened steel... more »

Recently, ultra-high-performance concrete (UHPC) has been introduced which has much higher mechanical properties and toughness than high-performance concrete (HPC). UHPC is typically a micro-mortar reinforced with micro fibers resulting in extremely impermeable and crack-resistant material. Such material can be used to produce precast panels that can be assembled on-site as stay-in-place (SIP) panels for the construction... more »

The Portal Bridge, an important commuter rail bridge connecting New Jersey to the hub of New York City, is a vital component of our transportation system. When it gets stuck, commuters get delayed, complaints go up, and satisfaction with NJ TRANSIT services go down. Underfunding has delayed a bridge repair or replacement, and it may be worthwhile to look into ways of funding and creating a repair/replacement for the Portal... more »

Environmental conditions have significant effects on performance of both flexible and rigid pavements. In the current AASHTO Pavement ME, an Enhanced Integrated Climatic Model (EICM) uses climatic data to simulate internal pavement temperature, moisture, and freeze-thaw conditions as a function of time. EICM requires historical records of five weather-related parameters reported on an hourly basis: air temperature, precipitation,... more »

In service fatigue fracture of highway signs and signal support structures due to wind induced oscillations is the primary concern for cost-effective life cycle performance of these structures. Recognizing the impact of potential life and property damage from structural failures and economic burden of inspecting, maintaining and replacing the sheer volume of these structures in the inventory, the American Association... more »

The engineering characteristics of subgrade materials are important to the integrity and serviceability of pavement. The most critical characteristics include load bearing capacity and volumetric change. The subgrade must be able to support loads applied on pavement without excessive deformation, and able to maintain its volumetric structure under severe temperature and groundwater level variations. To enhance the shear... more »

Many concrete transportation infrastructures in New Jersey such as pavements, bridge decks, and girders are suffering from exposure to successive frost actions and deicing salt. The number of freezing days in New Jersey leads to various premature to long-term distresses such as salt scaling, D-cracking, random cracking, and joint deterioration since water on freezing expands by 9% in volume, raising the internal pressure... more »

A cementitious material with right chemistry is necessary but insufficient for ensuring infrastructure durability. A cementitious material designed through advanced chemistry can demonstrate slow degradation and low permeability under controlled test conditions in laboratory setting. However, the degradation rate of the material could be quite different in a structure.
In general, cementitious materials in infrastructure... more »

New Jersey has the third-most movable bridges of the 50 states, with an average age of approximately 40 years and more than 50% of these bridges are structurally deficient mainly due to their bridge decks. Moreover, many of these bridges, whether state or locally owned, are subjected to significant amounts of average daily truck traffic (ADTT). Because of their condition and their location on significant commerce routes... more »