Publication Number: FHWA-RD-02-013
Date: August 2002

In Brief

More than 200 research reports from the Strategic Highway Research Program are now available in a searchable PDF format on the Web at www4.trb.org/trb/onlinepubs.nsf/web/shrp_publications. The reports will also be added to TRIS Online, the Transportation Research Information Service's database. The database is accessible online at 199.79.179.82/sundev/search.cfm.

The Federal Highway Administration's (FHWA) Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center in McLean, Virginia, recently launched an experiment designed to improve the Superpave binder specification. Twelve full-scale hot-mix asphalt (HMA) test lanes are being constructed at Turner-Fairbank's Pavement Test Facility (PTF). These lanes will be used to test seven polymer-modified asphalt binders and one unmodified binder. The Superpave specifications were originally developed for unmodified asphalts but the growing use of modified binders in HMA requires new or improved test procedures. Starting in September, the PTF's two Accelerated Loading Facility machines will be used to determine the rutting and fatigue cracking performance of the test lanes over the next several years. Primary financing for the study comes from national pooled-fund project TPF-5(119). The asphalt industry and FHWA's Eastern Federal Lands Highway Division office and Office of Pavement Technology are also providing funding and other assistance.

One of FHWA's six Strategic Goals is to "Improve the Nation's National Defense Mobility," with the specific objective being to "Improve the capacity and operations of the Strategic Highway Network (STRAHNET) and STRAHNET connectors to support defense mobilization." In March 2001, a STRAHNET task force started studying the readiness of the Nation's highways for national defense deployments. The task force conducted a pilot study of the infrastructure readiness of six "fort to port" routes in the Southeast with the support of the State highway agencies in those areas. The team will issue a final report of its findings this month. The report will include evaluations of whether the STRAHNET routes are the best ones to support deployment, recommendations on how to improve States' readiness in specific areas, and procedures to aid in inspecting STRAHNET routes in other regions of the country. The report will only be available on CD-ROM. For more information, contact Robert Radics, Intermodal Planning Engineer at FHWA's Southern Resource Center in Atlanta, Georgia, 404-562-3692 (email: robert.radics@fhwa.dot.gov). Information on the report's findings will also be covered in an upcoming issue of Focus.

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