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In their new op-ed in The Hill, Randolph Kirchain and Hessam AzariJafari explain why road improvements enhancing pavement stiffness and smoothness are essential to improve the efficiency and environmental performance of all vehicles. The majority of vehicles on the road are projected to be powered by traditional engines up through 2050, making it essential for states and municipalities to use this lever to cut emissions. The authors propose that the Federal Highway Administration should expand their current carbon performance measure to include emissions associated with road performance.

Click to read.

Franz-Josef Ulm sat on a panel with Pete Buttigieg at the Transportation Research Board’s 2024 meeting yesterday. The panel was part of a U.S. Department of Transportation-led workshop titled “New Materials for Infrastructure: Reinventing the Roadway, Runway, and Railway.”

Learn more about the panel.

In this report, Randolph Kirchain, Frank Field, Beth Unger, and Liz Moore summarize the MIT CSHub’s work to date to understand and mitigate the concrete delivery professional (CDP) shortage. Many thanks to the Concrete Advancement Foundation for sponsoring this special project.

Read the report.

Happy Holidays from the MIT CSHub! A hearty thank you to everyone in our community for your support. From our researchers to our industry partners, everyone in and around the Hub has helped progress our vision of realizing a carbon neutral industry, enabling more sustainable infrastructure with finite resources, and creating more resilient communities. We wish you and yours a great holiday season. 2024 is shaping up to be an exciting year at the Hub, and we hope you will join us for the ride.

Two articles of ours were among MIT News’ most popular of 2023.

Why was Roman concrete so durable? Researchers discovered ancient concrete-manufacturing strategies that gave Roman concrete its famed durability. The work may hold the key to designing concrete that lasts for millennia.

A supercapacitor made from ancient materials: A new kind of supercapacitor could provide cheap and scalable energy storage for renewable energy sources. The device is made from ancient, ubiquitous materials including cement, carbon black, and water.

Read the story.

During this webinar, we show the use of surrogate modeling to enable pavement design optimization and refine long-term performance forecasting. The presentation also includes the role of enhanced pavement design and strategic maintenance and rehabilitation (M&R) planning in mitigating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions throughout the pavement’s life cycle. Additionally, the webinar will address the practicality of constraining structured data specification to simplify a meaningful comparison of different pavement design options.

Click here to view.

From a successful PhD defense to a new research brief, it has been an eventful month at the Hub. Some highlights from our December Newsletter:

Join Randolph Kirchain, Hessam AzariJafari, and Haoran Li, PhD as they discuss findings from our recently-developed streamlined life cycle assessment tool for pavements during a public webinar at 11am. RSVP link: https://lnkd.in/gsY6uw6C

A new research brief by Johannes Kalliauer and Danial Amini explores a computationally inexpensive method to model urban flooding on different scales.

A warm congratulations to Ipek Bensu Manav, who successfully defended her doctoral thesis on Nov. 27.

Read the newsletter.

A warm congratulations to Ipek Bensu Manav for her successful PhD defense! Dr. Manav presented on “Assessing the Intersectional Risks Associated with the Full Life Cycle of the U.S. Housing Stock” before her doctoral committee last week.

We appreciate your hard work and look forward to seeing where your research takes you!

From presentations at ACI to our Fall Advisory Meeting, it has been an eventful month at the Hub! Some major updates:

Thank you to all who attended the November 1+2 Fall Advisory Meeting. We had great discussions and presentations on all things concrete, not to mention an excellent poster session inviting industry to engage directly with the researchers making our work possible.

We led eight presentations across diverse topic areas at ACI. Click the link below for more details.

We hosted academic and industry visitors from organizations like the Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León and Cemex México at MIT — thank you for the visit!

Read the newsletter here.

In this research brief by Johannes Kalliauer and Danial Amini, we explore a computationally inexpensive method to model urban flooding on different scales.

Click here to read.