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The Air Force is sponsoring research on damage-resistant runway designs. The designs are based upon principles which use high strength/high density materials to resist weapon momentum. Initially, two subscale pavement sections will be designed, one representing a rigid pavement for long-term aircraft traffic, and the other representing a redundant surface to withstand limited aircraft operations. The penetration resistance for both pavement sections will be determined experimentally. Penetration-resistant layers of rock or concrete rubble will then be designed as a sub-base to the pavement sections and these designs will be tested at subscale. Testing full-scale penetration- resistant rubble layers will be accomplished, and concept development should be complete in the late 1980s., This article is from 'The Interaction of Non-Nuclear Munitions with Structures: Symposium Proceedings Held at U.S. Air Force Academy, Colorado on May 10-13, 1983. Part 2,' ADA132116, p29-34.

The destruction of the World Trade Center building in September of 2001 exposed the vulnerability of domestic structures and facilities to terrorist attack. With transportation facilities on the list of potential targets, state DOTs initiated efforts to lessen the probability of an attack and to lessen the impact should such an attack occur. This project initially focused on the nation's bridges and sought to lessen the impact on an attack through rapid recovery operations by advanced planning and preparation, which includes the development of emergency response procedures and identification of rapid bridge replacement and repair techniques and materials. The scope of the project was later expanded to recovery operations following any extreme event; natural, accidental, or terrorist-planned.

0-4568 [TPF 5 (055)], The destruction of the World Trade Center building in September of 2001 exposed the vulnerability of domestic structures and facilities to terrorist attack. With transportation facilities on the list of potential targets, state DOTs initiated efforts to lessen the probability of an attack and to lessen the impact should such an attack occur. This project initially focused on the nation’s bridges and sought to lessen the impact on an attack through rapid recovery operations by advanced planning and preparation, which includes the development of emergency response procedures and identification of rapid bridge replacement and repair techniques and materials. The scope of the project was later expanded to recovery operations following any extreme event; natural, accidental, or terrorist-planned. Chapter 2 identifies and summarizes rapid bridge replacement and repair materials and techniques for bridge superstructures, decks, substructures, and general elements or members as well as floating bridges and contractor and construction techniques and methods. Chapter 3 identifies and summarizes 26 real-world cases of rapid bridge replacements. A summary of lessons learned is also provided. Chapter 4 addresses the effectiveness of incentive clauses in shortening construction schedules. Chapter 5 addresses pre-event preparations and includes the evaluation of critical bridge assets and the development of Emergency Response Plans for those critical assets.

0-1808, During the past two decades in the United States, scrap tires have been generated at an annual rate of one tire per person. Currently, the United States has 2 billion scrap tires in its stockpiles, and in Texas, this number is 150 million. Several applications have been developed for scrap tire use during the past decade. These include tire derived fuel (TDF) in industrial kilns and crumb rubber in asphalt. It is estimated that these account for less than 17 percent of scrap tire generation. Therefore, it is critical that alternative applications are developed where scrap tires can be used in large quantities. This research project was aimed at making an evaluation of existing practices and look into possible applications where TxDOT could use scrap tires in its construction projects. First, a literature review and a state-of-the-art survey was conducted for these studies. This was followed by the development of an economic analysis framework that could be used by TxDOT. A draft specification developed for the use of scrap tires in embankments is included in Chapter 8 of this report.

0-5834, The primary objective of this research was to determine the best way to consider the effects of transverse, superelevation on uniform-height steel-reinforced elastomeric bearing pads for U-Beam bridges. Existing TxDOT, design provisions did not specifically account for the effects of the transverse superelevation. A nationwide survey, of Departments of Transportation (DOTs) revealed that the country was nearly evenly split on whether or not, superstructure elements such as U-Beams should be placed on a transverse superelevation. Specific modifications, to the AASHTO Method “A” design of elastomeric bearing equations were developed to account for the transverse, superelevation. The proposed modifications were evaluated over typical U-Beam span/spacing combinations for, both the U-40 and U-54 sections. The ability of the proposed modifications to predict actual behavior was, evaluated by inspecting existing bridges and performing full-scale laboratory testing. Both the field inspections and, the laboratory testing validated the need for the proposed revisions. These proposed revisions have been submitted, as suggested revisions to the TxDOT LRFD Bridge Design Manual. The feasibility of electronic monitoring in-situ, bearings that have experienced significant transverse deflections was investigated. The bulging on the sides of the, bearings made monitoring unreliable. Instead, a method to manually record pertinent information during the, routine bridge inspection is recommended.

5-6735-01, In 2011, the Texas Tech Center for Multidisciplinary Research in Transportation (TechMRT) was contracted by the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) to analyze best practices for the department in responding to wildfires. This project (0-6735) was adapted into an implementation project in order to provide a training workshop for TxDOT employees on wildland fire management. The target audience of this workshop was TxDOT Directors of Operations (DOOs), Directors of Maintenance (DOMs), Area Engineers (AEs), maintenance managers, maintenance supervisors, assistants, and crew chiefs. A total of nine workshops were held beginning in March, 2014 and ending in June, 2014. Workshops were conducted in Lubbock, Alpine, San Antonio, Houston, Corpus Christi, Dallas, Fort Worth, and Brownwood. At least 557 TxDOT employees attended the workshops. During the course of these nine training workshops, evaluation sheets were distributed. The TechMRT project team received 527 total evaluations, and the responses were tallied and analyzed. Respondents were asked to indicate whether they strongly disagreed, disagreed, had no comment on, agreed, or strongly agreed with a number of different responses. Nine responses related to the general instruction and efficacy of the training workshops. Five responses related specifically to learning objectives that the project team wanted the attendants to master during the workshops. To evaluate the efficacy of the workshops, numerical values were assigned to each possible rating for every question, ranging from 1 for a strong disagreement to 5 for a strong agreement. Overall, every question received a rating between 4.22 and 4.49. These results indicate that the majority of students either agreed or strongly agreed with the efficacy of the workshops and felt they were equipped with new skills and a better understanding of their roles in wildland fire management.