New Tools for Informed Decisions in Pavement Management
Thursday, April 21, 2022, 2:30–4:30 pm
About the Webinar
This presentation highlighted new tools developed to help planners and policymakers make more informed decisions about investments in pavement assets, and to accurately predict pavement condition over time. The tools were developed in a recent project funded by MnDOT.
As part of the project, researchers obtained pavement management data from MnDOT and performed preliminary data analyses, calculating two metrics: Asset Sustainability Ratio and Deferred Preservation Liability. Researchers used these results in a dynamic programming optimization methodology to obtain baseline and optimal policies for different scenarios, and they developed a user-friendly Excel spreadsheet tool.
The webinar was held in conjunction with a CTS Transportation Infrastructure Research Council meeting.
Webinar Materials
- Watch the recording
- Marasteanu's presentation slides (PDF)
- Asp's presentation slides (PDF)
- Engstrom's presentation slides (PDF)
- Solsrud's presentation slides (PDF)
Speakers
Mihai Marasteanu is the director of undergraduate studies and professor in the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Geo- Engineering at the University of Minnesota. His major research interests involve applications of fundamental theories (viscoelasticity, rheology, plasticity, fracture mechanics, continuum damage mechanics, micromechanics) to bituminous materials characterization, modeling and experimental testing. Marateanu’s current research activities include the characterization of low-temperature behavior of asphalt binders and mixtures and the characterization of asphalt emulsions in relationship to their field performance. He received his engineering diploma from the Civil Engineering Institute of Bucharest, Romania, and went on to earn MS and PhD degrees in civil engineering from Pennsylvania State University.
Jhenyffer Asp is a pavement management analyst at the Minnesota Department of Transportation. She works in the pavement management unit, assisting in the implementation of a pavement investment guide to support the selection of MnDOT’s pavement fixes. She got a PhD in civil engineering at the University of Minnesota. Her dissertation topic was on developing a Markov chain model enhanced with ordinal logistic regression to predict pavement deterioration and optimize pavement repair activities.
Glenn Engstrom is the director of MnDOT’s Office of Materials and Road Research, which provides leadership and technical expertise on geotechnical and pavement engineering, materials testing, and research to its customers. He is also the chair of the National Road Research Alliance Executive Committee that has 11 public transportation agency members and over 70 associate members from academia and private industry from across the world. Engstrom has worked for MnDOT the past 29 years, and before that he worked for the FHWA, the US Army Corps of Engineers, the USDA Soil Conservation Service, and a private consulting firm.
David Solsrud is a civil engineer serving as MnDOT’s asset management program manager. A MnDOT employee for 38 years, he served as the maintenance engineer for the southwestern Minnesota District 8 for 16 years prior to establishing MnDOT’s Asset Management Program Office in 2015. The office is responsible for administration of MnDOT’s Transportation Asset Management System (TAMS), enterprise asset data acquisition and stewardship, and implementation of asset management-related business process improvements. Solsrud chairs MnDOT’s Asset Management Steering Committee, which sets strategic directions for asset management advancement.