Author: College of Engineering

Pasi Lautala (CEE), director of Rail Transportation Program, participated in the Summerail 2019 in St. Louis, MO on July 24-26. Dr. Lautala gave the presentation “Moving Forest Products in Upper Midwest—are there benefits from increased rail movements?” He also chaired the “TRB AR040—Freight Rail Transportation” committee meeting.

The conference is designed to bring together railroad professionals, government officials, and academics to discuss the past, present and future of the U.S. railroad industry.

Alex Mayer (Civil-Environ Eng / GLRC) is Principal Investigator on a project that has received a $319,950 research and development grant from the National Science Foundation. The project is titled “CBET-EPSRC Efficient Surrogate Modeling for Sustainable Management of Complex Seawater Intrusion-Impacted Aquifers.” This is a potential three-year project.

By Sponsored Programs.

Extract

Water management in densely populated coastal regions is one of the most pressing sustainability challenges worldwide. Coastal groundwater is especially vulnerable to climate change and sea level rise due to the potential for seawater intrusion into groundwater aquifers. Seawater intrusion has reduced water supply in all coastal regions of the US. This has resulted in high costs to society.

We propose to address this challenge by developing models that are orders of magnitude faster than current models.

These modeling advances will be made in collaboration with water supply agencies, with the goal of increasing the utility of groundwater modeling for coastal communities. Successful development and adoption of these approaches will help agencies tasked with the protection of coastal aquifers devise sustainable management strategies to protect scarce water resources.

Read more at the National Science Foundation.

Tim Colling (Civil and Environment Eng/CTT) is Principal Investigator on a project that has received a $30,504 other sponsored activities contract with the Michigan Department of Transportation. The project is titled, “MIRE Upgrades in Roadsoft.” Gary Schlaff (Civil and Environmental Eng) and Nick Kozykowski (Civil and Environmental Eng) are Co-PI’s on this approximate three-month project.

By Sponsored Programs.

MIRE refers to Model Inventory Roadway Elements fields.

Sangpil Ko and Pasi Lautala (CEE) have published four journal articles related to multimodal biomass transportation logistics. The articles also provided the foundation for Sangpil Ko’s dissertation Woody Biomass Transportation and Logistics: Modeling Studies for the Great Lakes Region.

Sangpil Ko, Pasi Lautala (CEE), and Robert Handler (ChemEng/SFI), published the article, “Securing the feedstock procurement for bioenergy products: a literature review on the biomass transportation and logistics” in the Journal of Cleaner Production. The journal is a peer-reviewed academic publication that is currently ranked first in Google Scholar in the Sustainable Development category.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.07.241

Sangpil Ko, Pasi Lautala (CEE), Jiqing Fan (California EPA), and David Shonnard (ChemEng/SFI), published the article “Economic, Social, and Environmental Cost Optimization of Biomass Transportation: A Regional Model for Transportation Analysis in Plant Location Process” in the Biofuels, Bioproducts & Biorefining. The journal is a peer-reviewed academic publication of the Energy and Fuel category.
https://doi.org/10.1002/bbb.1967

Sangpil Ko and Pasi Lautala (CEE), published the article, “Advanced Woody Biomass Logistics for Co-Firing in Existing Coal Power Plant: Case Study of the Great Lakes States” in the Transportation Research Record. The journal is a peer-reviewed academic publication of Transportation Science and Technology category.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0361198118797806

Sangpil Ko and Pasi Lautala (CEE), published the article “Optimal Level of Woody Biomass Co-Firing with Coal Power Plant Considering Advanced Feedstock Logistics System” in Agriculture. The journal is a peer-reviewed academic publication of Agricultural Technology and Crop Production category.
DOI: 10.3390/agriculture8060074

Zhanping You (CEE) was recently awarded as the Outstanding Member as a section chair of highway materials in the 3rd World Transport Convention 2019. This award is the highest recognition for the contribution of WTC member. The World Transport Convention was held in Beijing, China, June 13 to 16. More than 7,000 representatives from over 60 countries attended this meeting.

You also gave a keynote speech on “Research on Rubber Based Pavement in Wet-Freeze Region” in The Second Durable Pavement Research Forum. Another invited speech You delivered was on “Development and Validation of Innovative Laboratory Chip-Seal Tests.”

During the conference, You also met with the former graduates and friends of Michigan Tech and discussed research and education activities with them. Shuaicheng Guo, a post-doc in CEE also attended this conference. Guo presented on behalf of Wenbo Ma, a former visiting scholar at Michigan Tech, for a speech on “Atomic Force Microscope Study of the Aging/Rejuvenating Effect on Asphalt Morphology and Adhesion Performance.”

By Shuaicheng Guo.

Tim Colling (CEE/CTT) is Principal Investigator on a project that has received a $50,525 contract from the Michigan Department of Transportation. Gary Schlaff (CEE) and Nick Koszykowski (CEE) are Co-PI’s on the project titled “Roadsoft Support for MDOT Safety Services.” This is a potential three-year project.