A team from Western Research Institute will be joining approximately 11,000 policy makers, administrators, researchers, and government and industry representatives at the 87th Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board in Washington, D.C. January 13 through 17. Vice President Raymond Robertson and Chief Executive Officer Don Collins will be joined by seven members of WRI’s Transportation Technology Business Unit. 

The Transportation Research Board (TRB) is a division of the National Research Council, which serves as an independent advisor to the federal government on scientific and technical questions of national importance. The TRB Annual Meeting addresses all aspects and modes of transportation and is the country’s largest transportation convention. 

While in Washington, WRI Lead Scientist Mike Harnsberger, will lead a poster session as a member of TRB Committee AFK-20, Characteristics of Bituminous Materials. The committee is assessing the research needed to enhance performance characteristics of bituminous materials that affect long-term highway performance. Dr. Robertson will be presenting a poster on a method WRI has developed to identify the type and quantity of polymer in an asphalt mix. 

Shin-Che Huang, WRI Lead Engineer, will participate as a member of Committee AFK30, Characteristics of Nonbituminous Components of Bituminous Paving Mixtures. This committee looks at how the physical and chemical properties of aggregates, additives and other non-asphalt materials contribute to the performance of asphalt pavements over time. Dr. Huang will also present a paper on the long-term aging characteristics of polyphosphoric acid modified Asphalt at the TRB session on modified asphalt binders. 

Fred Turner, Principal Scientist at WRI, is a member of TRB Committee AFH-30, Emerging Technology for Design and Construction, a committee that investigates new technologies from fields outside transportation, such as electronics, optics, robotics, remote sensing, artificial intelligence, and information acquisition and processing, and considers how they might be used to benefit transportation design and construction.

On January 18, representatives from WRI’s Transportation Technology Business Unit will conduct a day-long review of WRI’s work on the Federal Highway Administration contracts “Fundamental Properties of Asphalts and Modified Asphalts, III” and “Asphalt Research Consortium.” The event is attended by representatives from FHWA, the aggregate industry, the refining industry, additives producers, state departments of transportation, and universities.