After having our mock presentation we got a lot of feedback on how to improve our presentation for next week. Some of the critiques had to do with the actual presentation such as not crossing our arms, editing the layout of slides, and not reading off of the slides. For the actual content, we were asked to go into more detail about traffic growth, sub grades of materials, and explain our design of the LED lamp more thoroughly and compare it to other current designs. We also need to gather a few more numbers concerning cost and efficiency in order to back up our findings. We are planning on meeting several times this week to complete our final report and create a more thorough presentation.
Week 9 Update: May 30st, 2013
We have added two more sections to the blog: ASCE Report card analysis and a Visibility section. Both of these help to explain more of our project. We are also doing a draft presentation today in order to prepare for our final presentation on Friday of next week.
Week 8 Update: May 24th, 2013
This week we are just continuing on in our research preparing to being our final design presentation and to create a more thorough final report. We have also begun to focus in on Philadelphia Roads. We have learned that 72% of roads in Philadelphia are in bad conditions and that it cost approximately $1,800 a year for residents of Philadelphia to maintain their cars. For future work we would go into detail into this and try to implement this onto a portion of road in Philadelphia. We have also concluded that we do want to use micro surfacing as our solution to roads. Micro surfacing is cheaper and last longer than other types of road maintenance Another nice thing about micro surfacing is that is is a very thin layer, therefore no other part of the road has to be altered. It also has a short drying time, allowing cars to start back driving within an hour. [10] [9]
Week 7 Update: May 17th, 2013
Right now we are research the cross sectional area of roads and also micro surfacing. It appears that micro surfacing will be our basis for our solution with added benefits. We have to look up cost of this method and how it can be implemented on roads in Philadelphia. We also need to research the way the machines that pave roads work. Here is a video of how micro surfacing is done:
Week 6 Update: May 10th, 2013
Last night the group met and decided what our outcomes for the week will be. Our draft of our final report is due next week so we have to sit down and decide what our final solution will be. We have decided to focus on the roads in the Pennsylvania and more specifically Philadelphia. We decided this because in terms of discovering a cost plan, it would be impossible to create a general cost plan for all roads in all states. Instead, we will focus on the monetary funding that Pennsylvania has and work with those figures and numbers. We hope to make our plan a universal idea that could be implemented in other states and we will use Pennsylvania as an example. We have decided that these are the things that we need to decide this week: what asphalt/concrete would be best to be used, how to implement these materials, the cost of this, and what is the best lighting to improve visibility on roads. We have a lot of specific research to do, our original research was more of a general analysis of roads to gain a better understanding. After this week we are going to have definite numbers and facts and a clear solution so that way we can write our draft properly.
Week 5 Update: May 2nd, 2013
Today we had our interviews with the two engineers from Penn Dot and New Jersey Transit. Our interview with Eileen Sheehy went as follows:
We found out that she is a materials engineer who is working on different sorts of asphalt creation. When asked what they are doing to improve asphalt she explained to us that asphalt creation has evolved a lot in the last twenty years. She said that when she started working in the late 80’s there were only two types of asphalt. Now, there are dozen different types that use polymer binders to attempt to improve on the asphalts performance. We also asked her what they were doing to attempt to improve road maintenance because there is an issue with funding. She said that they have taken a new protocol where instead of waiting for a road to start failing, they are taking preventative measures with roads such as continual micro surfacing. When we asked about hydrophobic materials she explained to us that asphalt is ideally supposed to be hydrophobic, but since paving leaves air bubbles in the asphalt that is how water gets into the road which leads to potholes and cracking. We also asked her about the use of LED lights in lane lines and explained that that is not being implemented because of the cost. She did say that they use bumpers in the middle of the lanes in New Jersey, but that many states choose not to use this. She also said that no one has really changed anything about lane lines since the late 80s. The main type of material used for lane lines is paint, but she said there is a tape that is more visible, but that the upkeep with the tape isn’t cost efficient. She also sent us a presentation that she recently did at Rutgers University on asphalt and aggregate. [8]
Our interview with Scott Nazar went as follows:
Scott Nazar is the chief of the Materials Innovation and Management section at Penn Dot. We asked him similar questions to the ones we asked Eileen Sheehy, but he had several different answers. He explained to us about fortafied asphalt which is a new type of asphalt that is easy to produce and to construct with less water necessary. When we asked about hydrophobic materials he was curious to what we were suggesting and said that it might work. He told us that he saw a demonstration where they used hydrophobic spray to seal up electric issues. He said that is definitely a possibility to look into. We discussed lane lines with him and he thought that glow in the dark material might be a possible solution although he doesn’t know if that would be cost efficient. He also said the same thing about LED lights in lane lines. He mentioned to us about the mechanical rollers which pave roads and how they have made improvements in those machines. He said the machines know how many times they went over the road and how many layers they did and are basically programmed to construct the roads with no help of other people. [7]
From these interviews several conclusions have been made. We have decided that looking for a more substantial asphalt instead of a hydrophobic material would be better. Also, we need to look at the paving part of road construction, not just the materials that they use. The problem with road maintenance might be the cause of bad paving and planning styles, not necessarily the asphalt and aggregate. We also need to look more at the costs of all of the solutions that we are looking into, including the LED lights.
Week 4 Update: April 26th, 2013
During lab we were asked to look at the American Society of Civil Engineers report card on infrastructure that just came out. America as a whole got a D+ and roads got a D. Here is what we found out from this report:
In 2013, American Society for Civil Engineers rated the infrastructure of America on an A-F grading scale. As a whole, American infrastructure got a D+. Roads only received a D. On their rating scale, D is equivalent to poor. Some of the problems with America’s roads is congestion, deficient pavement, cost maintenance, and fuel waste.
Almost 32% of American roads are in poor or mediocre condition. Not only does this cost various governmental bodies a lot of money, but it also costs motorist about $67 billion a year for car maintenance and operating costs. Another study shows that about 42% of urban highways are congested which leads to billions of gallons of gasoline being wasted. Between the next twenty years it’s going to cost approximately $101 billion a year just to maintain the roads. In order to actually improve the roads it would cost $170 billion a year. Currently, America is only spending $91 billion dollars a year, which is causing roads to deteriorate at an alarming rate. The poor conditions of roads also cause approximately one-third of all U.S traffic fatalities.
The American Society for Civil Engineers suggests several solutions that are currently working to improve roads: these solutions include developing performance-based investment strategies, optimizing usage of existing highway capacity, encouraging the use of asset management programs, using freight movement efficiency, increasing investment from all levels of government and the private sector, ensuring the sustained sufficiency and reliability of the highway trust fund, and continuing the highway safety improvement program successes. Although these are good solutions, current investment trends are not improving roadway conditions. With each year, the economic cost of this maintenance is increasing. The collaboration of governmental bodies, the private sector, and tax payers is necessary for road quality to increase.
Week 4 Update: April 23rd, 2013
We have looked up several facts about the following things: history of roads, surfaces underneath roads, road infrastructure, and common road problems. We have added pages onto the blog concerning these things. We also created a power point presentation about our progress with the project. That will also be attached to the blog as a page update.
We have received contact from a Penn Dot engineer, Scott Nazar, and an engineer from New jersey Transit, Eileen Sheehy. We have set up phone conferences with them for next Thursday. We plan to ask them what these two states are currently doing to solve road maintenance problems, what materials they use and why, how they improve road conditions including traffic signals. We also plan to run our ideas for hydrophobic materials, LED and glow in the dark materials, and possible uses of salt-based materials in the concrete aggregate.
Week 3 Update: April 17th, 2013
Currently we are doing research on materials that roads are made out of. All of the research we are doing will be put on our background page as a reference guide to what we are trying to complete. We are also contacting a Mechanical Engineer from PennDOT to find out more information and to have a mentor during this process. We are going to ask for advice on how to make our project successful.
Our main concern with research is either finding an alternative to asphalt for the creation of roads and an easier way to maintain roads as well.
Week 2 Update: April 12th, 2013
During lab we realized that we were more concerned with the actual road maintenance or a bridge, not the actual construction. Therefore, we have altered our project to deal with creating a more efficient way of construction and maintaining roads. We are also going to figure out ideas to create ore visible traffic signals. This maintenance of roads is very expensive for state governments and if we can create a way to lessen road work and create more stable roads this infrastructure will be greatly improved.
We are looking at different types of materials to create roads out of. Our first discovery is a product called NeverWet. This product is a silicon based spray used to essentially water proof anything. We are currently determining if we can possibly implement this as a one possible solution to our problem. The link to the website of this product is below:
We are meeting again outside of class to create a new timeline for our project and begin proper research. We are still currently trying to figure out our complete goals for this project.
Week 2 Update: April 10th, 2013
This week we came up project idea and began planning out the next ten weeks of this project. We are starting research on different types of bridge designs and different types of materials in which we can use to build our bridge. Currently we are working on a timeline for what we hope to accomplish during this project. We have establish that our end results will be:
-A simulation of our newly designed bridge in Creo
-A scale model of our bridge to present
-A poster display of the progress of our project
-A final report documenting the overall success of the project
Once we begin to research about our bridge we will post our findings in weekly update posts.
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