5/8/2024 McCall Macomber
Written by McCall Macomber
Han Wang, Illinois Center for Transportation doctoral student, received the 2024 International Geosynthetics Society student award.
The award recognizes top papers submitted by students in North and South America between 2021 and 2024.
Wang, one of eight award recipients, submitted the paper, “Bender Element Sensor Technology to Quantify Local Stiffness Enhancements of Geogrid-stabilized Aggregate Specimens.”
The paper is based on research conducted in the ICT and Illinois Department of Transportation joint project, R27-234: Effectiveness of Geosynthetics in Soil/Aggregate Stabilization — Evaluation using Bender Element Sensor Technology.
The project aims to evaluate the modulus enhancement brought by geosynthetics when placed in the soil or aggregate used to construct base or subbases of roadway pavements.
Wang and her advisor Erol Tutumluer use bender element sensor technology, which sends a shear wave through prepared test specimens and measures the speed of the shear wave, to evaluate a pavement layer’s stiffness and strength.