Category: Research

Researchers at The Center for Technology and Training, which is part of the civil and environmental engineering department, have developed a new system for assessing the conditions of gravel roads. This system and its use by Michigan road agencies was the subject of an article in the winter 2016 Journal of the County Road Association of Michigan.

CTT staff, John Kiefer, Melanie Kueber-Watkins, Pete Torola and Tim Colling all worked to develop and test the new system which will be widely collected in Michigan starting this year with full implementation in 2018. Data collected with the system will be reported on a state-wide basis to the Michigan Legislature on an annual basis.

By Tim Colling.

New Inventory-Based Rating System Pilot Tested in 2016

Unpaved road rating system developed by Michigan Tech brings asset management principles to unpaved Michigan roads

Finally—The Tools to Rate an Unpaved Road

Gravel and unpaved roads make up half of Michigan’s non-federal aid network, and there are 22,000 miles of them in Michigan.

As a result of a project funded by the Michigan Transportation Asset Management Council (TAMC), CTT has pioneered a new rating system for unpaved roads, called the inventory-based ratings (IBR) system.

Read more at The Quarterly Journal of the County Road Association of Michigan.

Judith Perlinger (CEE/GLRC) is the principal investigator on a project that has received a $44,684 research and development grant from the Indiana Department of Environmental Management.

Noel Urban (CEE) is the Co-PI on the project, “Can Reductions in Great Lakes Fish PCB Concentrations be Achieved by Management of PCBs in Atmospheric Deposition?”

This is a 15 month project.

By Sponsored Programs.

HOUGHTON — A Michigan Technological University researcher is leading the effort to create a comprehensive model for the complicated and diverse climate of the Great Lakes region.

Pengfei Xue developed a model combining climate and water models with assistance from Loyola Marymount University, LimnoTech and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory.

When we have that component, the entire water cycle and surface water cycle would be complete. Then we could estimate the water level change over years.

Read more at the Mining Gazette, by Garrett Neese.

In the News

The Mining Journal in Marquette and the Daily Mining Gazette in Houghton published an article about Pengfei Xue’s (CEE) research, building computer models of the impact of climate on the Great Lakes.

Timothy Colling (CEE/MTTI) is the principal investigator on a project that has received a $90,504 contract with the Michigan Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration.

Nicholas Koszykowski (CEE), is the Co-PI on the project, “2017 MERL Development and Support.” This is a one-year project.

Alex Mayer (CEE/GLRC), is the principal investigator on a project that has received a $52,771 research and development grant from the National Science Foundation.

The project is entitled “EAGER: Collaborative Research: The Role of Citizen Science in Watershed Hydrology Research: Relationships Between Volunteer Motivations, Data Quantity and Quality, and Decision-Making.”

This is a one-year project.

There is growing interest in using citizen science projects, public participation in scientific research, to measure hydrologic parameters. Hydrologic variability requires repeated measurements over long periods of time and over a wide range of locations.

Zhanping You (CEE/MTTI) is the principal investigator on a project that has received a $183,489 research and development contract with the Michigan Department of Transportation.

Chris Gilbertson (CEE) is Co-PI on the project, “Identify Best Practices in Pavement Design, Materials, Construction and Maintenance in Wet Freeze Climates Similar to Michigan.”

This is a 13-month project.

By Sponsored Programs.

The Associated Press (AP) published a news story about Governor Rick Snyder’s 21st Century Infrastructure Commission, which met Monday to present a report and recommendations for maintenance and improvement of Michigan’s infrastructure. Michigan Tech’s Roadsoft program was mentioned in the report as a model for a regional infrastructure pilot. News outlets all over Michigan published or broadcast the AP story.

Priscilla Addison (GMES), Pasi Lautala (CEE) and Thomas Oommen (GMES) published a paper, “Utilizing Vegetation Indices as a Proxy to Characterize the Stability of a Railway Embankment in a Permafrost Region,” in AIMS Geosciences.

doi: 10.3934/geosci.2016.4.329

Pengfei Xue (CEE) and his modeling work through the Great Lakes Research Center, which led to a more comprehensive climate and hydrodynamics model for the whole Great Lakes region, has been featured in several science media outlets including Science Daily, Phys.org, Terra Daily and Supercomputing Online News. The story was shared numerous times by collaborators and the science community on Twitter.

Weather the Storm: Improving Great Lakes Modeling

The collaborative work brought together researchers from Michigan Technological University, Loyola Marymount University, LimnoTech and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory. Pengfei Xue, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at Michigan Tech, led the study through his work at the Great Lakes Research Center on campus.

One of the important concepts in climate change, in addition to knowing the warming trend, is understanding that extreme events become more severe. That is both a challenge and an important focus in regional climate modeling. —Pengfei Xue

Read more at Michigan Tech News, by Allison Mills.

In the News

TechCentury, an engineering and technology publication of the Engineering Society of Detroit, reported on research led by Pengfei Xue(CEE), using computer modeling to better predict weather and its impacts on the Great Lakes. Read the article here.