Review Volpe-authored technical materials by subject. Volpe is home to a number of national experts in the fields of energy and environment, human factors, structures and dynamics, wake vortices, and more. Explore our publications and research in each of these topics below.
Air Quality
This list of publications reflects Volpe’s contribution to air quality literature. Topics covered include aircraft emission measurement, particulate matter measurement at airports, air quality prediction near roadways, alternative jet fuels, and passenger vehicle and over-flight aircraft emission measurement within our national parks.
Acoustics
This bibliography includes publications and papers from 1971 to present that have been published by the Volpe Acoustics Facility. Volpe’s work in noise measurement extends to all modes of transportation; we measure aircraft noise, pavement noise, as well as vehicle and motorcycle noise in our national parks. With over 40 years of experience, we conduct integrated noise modeling, traffic noise modeling, helicopter noise modeling, and vibration studies. We also measures the impact of noise on our communities and on wildlife, studying the impacts of noise barriers, booms, and rail transit wayside.
Evaluating and Mitigating the Risk of Disease Transmission at Airports and on Aircraft Reference Library
Volpe's searchable reference library of over 600 sources focuses on the impact of infectious disease at airports and on aircraft. You can search and sort by category, author, title, or abstract.
Human Factors
This bibliography includes publications and papers from 1970 to present that have been published by Volpe’s human factors team.
Human Health Impacts of Noise in National Parks Reference Library
This searchable reference library includes abstracts and links to publications related to the study of the human health impacts of noise in our national parks. You can search and sort by category, author, title, or abstract.
Public Lands
Volpe’s Public Lands team assists federal land management agencies in resolving complex transportation challenges. The team’s work covers alternative transportation planning, lifecycle modeling, air tour management plans, transit and trail access, and climate change scenario planning. This project listing contains links to brief descriptions and reports of a selection of public lands projects.
Rail and Component Structural Integrity
This publication listing includes Volpe-authored publications dating back to 1988 on rail integrity, heavy axle loads, rail grinding practices, alternative inspection procedures, potential benefits from improved non-destructive testing, and wheel performance studies.
Rail Equipment Crashworthiness
This publication listing reflects Volpe’s contribution to rail crashworthiness research since 1993. The publications trace the understanding of factors involved in passenger protection and impact absorption, focusing on the types of structural modifications that can make rail equipment safer.
Tank Car Structural Integrity
These Volpe-authored publications reflect three decades of rail tank car safety support to the Federal Railroad Administration. Studies include research in puncture resistance, damage tolerance, residual cracks, and the structural behavior of tank cars during a derailment or collision, and findings from full-scale impact tests.
Track Buckling
These Volpe-authored publications evaluate advanced corridor evaluation systems, appropriate inspection thresholds and guidelines, advanced instrumentation use, data analysis, and computer modeling tools.
Wake Vortex Bibliography
This annotated bibliography consists of abstracts of publications on aircraft wake vortices, and experimental and theoretical articles that consider the formation, structure, motion, and decay of vortices and their effect on penetrating aircraft.