Category: Research

Pasi Lautala Participates in Shift2Rail

Pasi Lautala
Pasi Lautala

Pasi Lautala (CEE) the director of Michigan Tech’s Rail Transportation Program was invited to participate in a Shift2Rail project meeting in Pardubice, Czech Republic. Lautala also gave a presentation titled, “Importance of (Freight) Rail Transportation in North America.”

Shift2Rail is the first European rail initiative to seek focused research and innovation (R&I) and market-driven solutions by accelerating the integration of new and advanced technologies into innovative rail product solutions. Shift2Rail promotes the competitiveness of the European rail industry and meets changing EU transport needs to complete the Single European Railway Area (SERA).

Best Papers in Environmental Science 2018

Mercury Deposition mapNoel Urban (CEE), Cory McDonald (CEE), Shiliang Wu (CEE/GMES), Judith Perlinger (CEE), Valoree Gagnon (SS), Hugh Gorman (SS) and Charles Kerfoot (BioSci) with CEE/EPD2 students, Tanvir Kahn, Ashley Hendricks, Mudgha Priyadarshini, Morgan Bolstad, Huanxin Zhang, and A. Kumar published two papers on mercury deposition, both nominated for their excellence.

The papers were nominated as Best Papers 2018 – Environmental Science: Processes & Impacts by the Environmental Science Best Papers Initiative among those published in the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Environmental Science journal family.

Perlinger, J.A., Urban, N.R., Giang, A., Selin, N.E., Hendricks, A.N., Zhang, H., Kumar, A., Wu, S., Gagnon, V.S., Gorman, H.S., and Norman, E.S., Responses of deposition and bioaccumulation in the Great Lakes region to policy and other large-scale drivers of mercury emissions, Environ. Sci.: Processes Impacts, 20, 195-209, 2018.

DOI: 10.1039/C7EM00547D

Kerfoot, W.C., Urban, N.R., McDonald, C.P., Zhang, H., Rossmann, R., Perlinger, J.A., Khan, T., Hendricks, A., Priyadarshini, M., Bolstad, M., Mining legacy across a wetland landscape: High mercury in Upper Peninsula (Michigan) rivers, lakes, and fish, Environ. Sci.: Processes Impacts, 20, 708-733, 2018.

DOI: 10.1039/C7EM00521K

Pasi Lautala Presents Abroad on Rail Transportation

Level Crossing Forum adPasi Lautala (CEE), Director of Michigan Tech’s Rail Transportation Program, lectured at the Jyväskylä University of Applied Sciences in Finland. The presentation was titled, “Railroads as Part of Transportation System (in U.S. and Elsewhere).”

Lautala also participated in International Union of Railways Workshop on Rail Suicide and Trespasser Prevention and the 21st European Level Crossing Forum in Paris, France. As part of the Level Crossing Forum, Lautala presented research conducted at Michigan Tech, “Driver Behavior at Level Crossings — In-Vehicle Auditory Alerts and Naturalistic Driving Data Research in the USA.”

Faculty and Students Attend 98th Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting

Students and faculty in pavement materials areas attended the 98th Transportation Research Board (TRB) Annual Meeting on January 13-17, 2019. Siyu Chen, Xiaodong Zhou, Jiaqing Wang, Lingyun You, Dongdong Ge, Miao Yu, Chaochao Liu, and Junfeng Gao presented at the meeting. Professor Zhanping You presented “The Development of a New Asphalt Mixture Containing Reacted and Activated Rubber and Reclaimed Asphalt Pavement via Superpave Mix Design and Marshall Mix Design.”

Tim Colling, Director of the Center for Technology & Training, attended throughout and served on the ANB 25: Highway Safety Performance Committee.

Professor Eric Seagren attended the TRB meeting as a member of the Geo-Environmental Processes Committee (AFP40) to participate in the committee’s annual meeting.

Assistant Professor Zhen Liu (Leo) attended TRB with a visiting student, Peng Gao. Liu presented at the committee meeting of AFP50: Committee on Seasonal Climatic Effects on Transportation Infrastructure. The title of the presentation was “Data-Driven Predictions of Freezing and Thawing Depths with 3D Models.”

Associate Professor Pasi Lautala chaired the AR040 Freight Rail Transportation Committee. He also presented a poster by himself and Alawudin Salim (MS alumnus of Civil Engineering) “A HUMAN BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS OF HIGHWAY-RAILROAD GRADE CROSSINGS BASED ON ENVIRONMENTAL CONDITIONS AND DRIVER DEMOGRAPHICS.”

Sangpil Ko Poster
Sangpil Ko by his poster.

Research Assistant Sangpil Ko presented a poster co-authored by himself, Pasi Lautala, and Assistant Professor Kuilin Zhang on “Log Movement in the Superior Region – Rate and Capacity Based Analysis of Modal Shares.”

Associate Professor Amlan Mukherjee presented on a recently concluded National Cooperative Highway Research Program project involving the development of a Guidebook for Sustainable Highway Construction Practices at the meeting for the TRB Standing Committee on Construction Management (AFH10).

Mukherjee also presented the Michigan Department of Transportation study on “Workflows for Digital Project Delivery in Transportation Construction Projects” at the sub-committee meeting on Information Systems in Construction Management [AFH10(1)], where he serves as Secretary.

Mukherjee and PhD candidate Chaitanya Bhat co-authored a paper on “Sensitivity of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) Outcomes to Parameter Uncertainty: Implications For Material Procurement Decision-Making.” The paper was presented at a lectern session by Bhat. It has also been accepted for publication in the Journal of the Transportation Research Record, to be published in 2019. Mr.Bhat presented his research on “Life-Cycle Thinking” in a 3 Minute Thesis event organized at TRB.

Taking advantage of their time in Washington DC, Mukherjee and Bhat, as part of their ongoing research in pavement Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) funded by the Federal Highway Administration, also organized a stakeholder meeting with fellow collaborators among members of the Federal LCA Commons.

Also in attendance were PhD students Qinjie Lyu and Jiaqing Wang.

Notables

Civil Engineering PhD student Chaitanya Bhat’s 3-Minute Thesis (3MT) presentation from the 2019 TRB Annual Meeting has been selected for a webinar titled “Operation and Preservation Young Professionals Research Part II: Pavement Preservation.”

Jiaqing Wang Presents on Transportation Topics

Jiaqing Wang presenting at TRB 2019Jiaqing Wang attended the Transportation Research Board (TRB) 98th Annual Meeting at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, January 13–17, 2019, in Washington, D.C. He presented his recent research work under Dr. Qingli Dai’s supervision. The presentation title was “Effectively Recycling Scrap Tire Rubbers into Epoxy Polymer Concrete as Overlays or Repair Materials.”

To reduce environmental landfill problems with the accumulation of tire rubbers, scrap tire rubbers were added to epoxy polymer concrete. The solid rubber particles (with mesh size #50) were introduced into epoxy concrete with two different contents of 5% and 10% based on the epoxy monomer weight. The test results indicated that the use of solid waste tires could not only enhance the performance of neat epoxy concrete, but also contribute to environmental protection while extending the service life of existing concrete structures. His presentation and the research work that was conducted in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Michigan Tech attracted the audience’s attention and interest.

Wang also attended the 9th International Association of Chinese Infrastructure Professionals (IACIP) Annual Workshop “Innovations of Transportation Infrastructure In an Era of Climate Change.” He received 2nd prize in the student poster competition.

Jennifer Becker Publishes on Sustainability Metrics for Water Resource Recovery

Jennifer Becker
Jennifer Becker

Jennifer G. Becker (CEE) is one of the lead authors on a paper that defines the sustainability metrics that should be used to assess water resource recovery facilities of the future. The paper, which was just published in Water Environment Research, was a follow-up to a National Science Foundation-sponsored workshop to which Becker and other leaders in the field of water and wastewater treatment and reuse were invited.

The workshop focused on developing evaluation metrics to advance the Facilities Accelerating Science & Technology (FAST) Water Network. FAST includes over 90 test bed facilities dedicated to accelerating innovation and adoption of water energy, and nutrient recovery systems.

Sustainability metrics for assessing water resource recovery facilities of the future

Pablo K. Cornejo Jennifer Becker Krishna Pagilla Weiwei Mo Qiong Zhang James R. Mihelcic Kartik Chandran Belinda Sturm Daniel Yeh Diego Rosso
First published: 25 January 2019 https://doi.org/10.2175/106143017X15131012187980
Volume 91, Issue1, January 2019, Pages 45-53

The recovery of water, energy, and nutrients from water resource recovery facilities (WRRFs) is needed to address significant global challenges, such as increasing water demand and decreasing availability of nonrenewable resources. To meet these challenges, innovative technological developments must lead to increased adoption of water and resource recovery processes, while addressing stakeholder needs (e.g., innovators, practitioners, regulators).

Read more at Water Environment Research.

Sarah Washko Attends Snow Measurement Field School

Sarah Washko takes measurements in the snowSarah Washko, an environmental engineering MS student, participated in the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc. (CUAHSI) Snow Measurement Field School on January 6-11, 2019, in Bozeman Montana. The NASA-funded course provided training for performing high-quality snow measurements in the field, as well as in the fundamentals of snow hydrology analysis. In addition to traditional field methods, remote sensing techniques were also explored.

Each day in the field concluded with a presentation of the day’s findings. The final day culminated in a student designed field campaign at the Bridger Bowl Ski area. The workshop was designed to cultivate snow measurement and research design skills.