570,460 Auslink Low Volume Roads Initiative Research Grant for Civil Engineering
By Professor John Wilson
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Through AusLink, the Australian Government is undertaking the Low Volume Roads Technology Initiative. The initiative will promote the investigation and development of new technology or the new application of existing technology to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of low volume roads.
Total funding of $2.5 million was available for the initiative. Swinburne Civil Engineering has been awarded a grant of $570, 460 following a successful application by Assoc. Prof Kerry McManus, AM, who is the Project Director. The contract was signed off in December 2007. The purpose of the grant is to fund two years of research, by a research team from Swinburne Civil Engineering assisted by a team from Melbourne University.
Civil Engineering at Swinburne has been publishing articles on research into the performance of pavements since 1994. Several themes have been canvassed including the use of profilometer records to assess the performance of flexible pavements, the interpretation of profilometer records to measure maintenance, the derivation of deterioration models for local government roads using crack measurements and roughness measurements and analysis of the range of wavelengths in a pavement surface and their impact on dynamic loading and their effect on drivers of heavy vehicles. Articles have also been published on the influence of expansive soils on the behaviour of light structures such as pavements. The research has resulted in a book chapter, thirteen journal articles and forty seven refereed conference papers. Three Doctorates have been awarded and six candidates have received Masters Degrees so far.
In this research, it is proposed to produce two models related to the performance of low volume roads. The first is a Pavement Deterioration Model for low volume roads which could provide road authorities with the capacity to predict likely changes with time in the road surface profile. These changes would be related to the type of maintenance effort required to address the problem.
The second model would guide road authorities in the selection of maintenance techniques that are most effective in raising the performance of the road in a long term economical manner. The first model is being pursued by Swinburne University with Robert Evans undertaking a pilot study. The second model is the focus for the Melbourne University team. As a further outcome, the characteristics of long wavelength roughness that cause dynamic loading on pavements by heavy truck axles would be determined. This would result in the identification of sections of pavement requiring special attention in the way of maintenance.
Assoc. Prof Emad Gad is the Deputy Project Director. and Dr. Niloofar Gheissari is the recently appointed Research Fellow for the project.