The MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub (CSHub) is focused on Building for LIFE through life cycle thinking, innovation, fiscal responsibility and environmental leadership, reports NRMCA Vice President, Pavement Structures Brian Killingsworth who attended last week's MIT CSHub Showcase held on the MIT campus in Cambridge, MA. During the event, participants were updated by students and researchers on the latest research from the concrete science, buildings and pavements groups through a poster session and other interactive breakouts. At the poster session, participants were able to engage MIT researchers on nearly 20 topics in a one-on-one setting, allowing for Q&A and a deeper understanding of how the research may impact the attendees in their business.

The following day participants heard a keynote address from former U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood who called for a "big bold vision" for infrastructure and transportation in America that would bring the country back to number one again by improving roads and bridges. LaHood believed that this can be accomplished by utilizing all funding mechanisms available, including raising the gas tax and indexing to inflation.

The final sessions allowed participants to choose their area of interest and attend a breakout session either on concrete science, buildings or pavements. Killingsworth attended the session on life cycle assessment and economics related to pavement. At this breakout session, attendees discussed, among other things, how MIT will implement the environmental life cycle assessment research that has been conducted, specifically focusing on the pavement-vehicle interaction model improvements. With the latest version of this model, the speed of the vehicle and the visco-elastic effects of paving materials are incorporated, which significantly improves the ability of the model to predict the fuel consumption differences for a vehicle traveling on various pavement surfaces.