UIUC Hosts Eighth International BCR2A Conference; Marshall Thompson Recognized for His Contributions to the Conference
The conference attracted academics, researchers, and practitioners involved in transportation geotechnics, pavement and railroad engineering disciplines, and concerned with the many issues pertaining to the bearing capacity and mechanistic based design of highway and airfield pavements and railroad track structures.
A highlight of the conference was when UIUC faculty presented Professor Emeritus Marshall Thompson with an award of appreciation for his contributions to the BC2RA conference's history.
More than 250 attendees traveled from 32 different countries to attend this conference, which provided a forum to promote efficient design, construction and maintenance of the transportation infrastructure. (See topic list below.)
Other highlights of the conference included 38 technical sessions, a technical visit to ATREL that included a barbeque dinner, an elegant conference banquet, several exhibits, and a visit to downtown Chicago during the Taste of Chicago and the fireworks.
Many attendees arrived a day early to participate in the four pre-conference workshops; the topics included: Climatic Affects on Pavement Infrastructure, FAARFIELD/Designs for New and Rehabilitated Airport Pavements, Pavement Interlayer Systems, and Railroad Track Design including Asphalt Trackbeds.
The conference's keynote presentations included:
Recent and landmark improvements in performance characterization of unbound aggregate bases and subbases and sublayers comprised of Chemically Stabilized Materials (CSMs) by Professor Dallas N. Little, Texas A&M University, USA
The performance of rail track incorporating the effects of ballast breakage, confining pressure and geosynthetic reinforcement by Professor Buddhima Indraratna, University of Wollongong, Australia
Airport pavement design for the 21st century by Dr. Satish K. Agrawal, Federal Aviation Administration, William J. Hughes Technical Center, New Jersey, USA.
BCR2A'09 Conference Topics
- Subgrade Soils
- Granular Materials
- Asphalt Mixtures
- In-situ Measurement Techniques & Developments
- Modeling & Methods of Functional Testing
- Backcalculation Analyses of Deflection Measurements
- New and/or Innovative Techniques in Compaction & Construction
- Structural Evaluation & Performance Prediction
- Structural Design Systems for New Construction & Rehabilitation
- Bearing Capacity Designs for Challenging Conditions & Load Effects
- Bearing Capacity Designs for Climatic Conditions
- Reinforcement of Structural Layers
- Utilization of Recycled Materials
- Railroad Track Structures
- Full-Scale Testing
UIUC faculty who were involved in the conference included: Erol Tutumluer (Conference Chair), Imad Al-Qadi (Conference Co-Chair and Highway Area Coordinator), David Lange (Airfield Area Coordinator), and Chris Barkan (Railroad Area Coordinator). Bill Buttlar, Jeff Roesler, Riley Edwards, and Marshall Thompson served on the organizing committee. David Lippert from IDOT also served on the organizing committee and gave a welcome address to the attendees.
ICT research presented included:
Characterizing aggregate permanent deformation behavior based on types and amounts of fines (R27-1)
SOFTSYS for backcalculation of full-depth asphalt pavement layer moduli (R39-2)
Thermal stress analysis in ultra-thin whitetopping pavement (R27-3)
Expansive characteristics of RAP materials for use as aggregates in the pavement substructure layers (R27-27)
More information about the conference is available at www.BCR2A.org. The 9th International Conference will take place on June 24-28, 2013, in Trondheim, Norway.
Conference proceedings are available from Taylor & Francis at taylorandfrancis.com (ISBN: 9780415871990, ISBN-10: 0415871999, Publisher: CRC Press, Editors: Tutumluer and Al-Qadi).
Photos: (top) UIUC faculty present Professor Emeritus Marshall Thompson with an award of appreciation for his contributions to the BC2RA conference's history; (below top) Student Deb Mishra explains his research during the ATREL tour; (below middle) Conference attendees enjoy the banquet; (bottom) Student Safraz Ahmed stands next to the ICT exhibit.
