Civil, Environmental, and Geospatial Engineering News

SPOTLIGHT – Road Commission of Kalamazoo County

2018 Scrap Tire Market Development Grantee

Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy sent this bulletin at 08/20/2019 10:00 AM EDT

The Road Commission of Kalamazoo County (RCKC) was awarded a Department of Environmental, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) Scrap Tire Market Development Grant in partnership with Michigan Technological University (MTU) for scrap tire innovation. An estimated 13,672 scrap tires were recycled on the project, which took a significant amount of coordination with the partners due to its experimental nature.

The project includes the use of new rubber technology never before used in the United States. The project utilized hot rubber chip seal (HRCS) and hot rubber thin overlay (HRTO) on two different segments of W Avenue from the Schoolcraft Village Limits to Portage Road. There were also two conventional chip seal application segments installed as control sections. Each of the four project sections spanned 4,000 feet of West W Avenue.

“The purpose of the project is to evaluate the new reacted and activated rubber and to investigate the applicability of such rubber mainly composed of finely grinded scrap tires. The aim is to create a more cost-effective, long-lasting, safe and environmentally friendly, mixes and surface treatments,” Dr. [Zhanping] You said.

Read more at the EGLE bulletin.

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