The first University Transportation Center TriDurLE (transportation infrastructure durability and life extension) symposium in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering took place virtually Dec. 6-7. The symposium featured four keynote speakers, 45 presentations, and 21 student poster presentations from scholars and professionals worldwide who are conducting research on transportation infrastructure. Organizers plan to make it an annual event.
The quality of the symposium presentations represent the valuable research focused on addressing the issues of aging infrastructure and the need for more durable, sustainable, and environmentally friendly solutions. Presentations covered topics related to durable and sustainable concrete materials, advances in pavement overlays, advances for durable and sustainable asphalt pavement, advances for durable concrete structures, novel concrete mixtures, interdisciplinary approaches to durability and resilience of civil infrastructure, damage evaluation and resilient infrastructure, innovations for reliable transportation infrastructure, corrosion and infrastructure implications, advances in multimodal transportation infrastructure, and performance monitoring and transportation infrastructure.
The four keynote speakers and presenters represented academia, industry, and departments of transportation, providing important multiple perspectives on transportation infrastructure-related issues. The symposium proved valuable in promoting collaboration and sharing ongoing research that is at the forefront of the country’s infrastructure focus. Keynote speakers were Bijan Khaleghi, a state bridge design engineer at the Washington State Department of Transportation, John Siekmeier, a research engineer with the Minnesota Department of Transportation, Kelvin Wang, a regents professor at Oklahoma State University School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Jason Weiss, distinguished chair in engineering at Oregon State University.
A panel of judges made up of TriDurLE consortium member site directors selected four student poster winners and three outstanding presentations. Student poster award winners are Ayumi Manawadu of Washington State University, Beshoy Riad of Missouri University of Science & Technology, Matthew Brogden of Florida Atlantic University, and Tobby Lie of University of Colorado Denver. Outstanding presentation awards went to Dr. Jing Zhong of Harbin Institute of Technology, China, Dr. Mostafa Tazarv, South Dakota State University, and Dr. Jun Wang, University of Colorado Denver.
TriDurLE was established in 2019 and is one of seven national university transportation centers funded by the U.S. Department of Transportation. Directed by Dr. Xianming Shi, who is also interim chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, TriDurLE is the only national center focused on improving the durability and extending the life of transportation infrastructure. The eleven-member university consortium represents many climactic regions of the U.S. and is currently working on more than 50 DOT-funded collaborative research projects.
