Announcements

The Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) announced that it is seeking proposals for high-risk research projects to develop innovative technologies for inspecting, monitoring and evaluating critical components of the nation’s roadways, bridges, and drinking and wastewater systems. The competition for cost-shared research and development (R&D) support is the first to be announced by NIST’s newly established Technology Innovation Program (TIP) in an effort to address critical societal challenges. See http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/releases/tip_20080709.html.

FHWA Exploratory Advanced Research (EAR) Program awards a cooperative agreement to the Texas Transportation Insitute (TTI) at the Texas A&M University for work on next generation solutions to build, maintain and manage future highways.  The research is attempting a crosscutting and bold approach to address the issue of cracking in concrete pavements and structures. The research study proposes new concepts to prevent or reduce cracks, which are a major problem in portland cement concrete. If successful, the project can point the way to a new use of nano- to microscale inclusions in the concrete to enable it to relax a little under stress, thus reducing harmful cracking in concrete pavements. [Read more]

Exploratory Advanced Research Federal Register Notice Seeks Interest, Comments
On July 8, the Federal Register included a notice about the Exploratory Advanced Research (EAR) Program announcing five EAR projects that will take place at the Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center (TFHRC).  The notice is seeking to encourage interest in the work by organizations or individuals conducting related work or anticipating the results of such work and to solicit comments about the long-term impact of the work on future research, technical innovation, or transportation industry practices.  [Read More]

Highlighted Activities

Winter Simulation Conference, December 7-10, 2008
Learn about the latest autonomous vehicle technologies and how they might be integrated into vehicle-highway operations. [Read more]

Hydraulic Forum, Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center, August 2007
A collaborative effort to develop an Advanced Research Hydrologic/Hydrology Roadmap [Read more]