Transportation Research Board Holds Annual Meeting

The 97th annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board (TRB) was held earlier this month in Washington, DC. More than 14,000 transportation professionals, academics and industry personnel attended. There were more than 5,500 papers submitted out of which only 900 have been accepted for publication. There was a workshop on durability of Performance Engineered Mixtures (PEM) – discussion included supplier/contractor quality among other things. A 5-year $3 Million pooled fund study led by CP Tech Center in Iowa and supported by the RMC Research & Education Foundation was initiated in 2017. This study is focused primarily on training and implementation of projects designed with performance engineered mixtures. A new AASHTO provisional standard PP84-17 on Performance Engineered Mixtures (PP) was published in April 2017. States will get additional funding for shadow projects with PEM requirements. The Circular on Internal Curing is likely to be published this year.

The 2019 TRB is likely to feature a workshop on fly ash beneficiation and Alternative Cementing Materials. There are four TRB committees in concrete materials and several on concrete pavements. TRB committees organize technical sessions at the TRB meeting, develop research needs statements and research synthesis topics. These are listed on the committee Web site and from time to time some of them could be funded by NCHRP and other agencies. The theme of the 2019 TRB meeting which will be held January 13-17 is Transportation for a Smart, Sustainable and Equitable Future. The 2nd International Conference on Nanotechnology of Cement and Concrete will be held May 23-25, 2020 in Irvine, CA.

For more information, contact Karthik Obla at kobla@nrmca.org.