Materials Engineering Faculty Candidate Seminar
"The Effect of Wind on the Structural Design of Asphalt
Pavements"
James Bryce, Ph.D.
Lecturer
Assistant Professor at the Department of Civil Engineering,
Marshall University
Monday | February 28 | 2:00PM-3:00PM
NH 181A or Zoom Link: https://unl.zoom.us/j/95721799013
Abstract:This presentation details work performed to evaluate the current practice in pavement thermal models.
Temperature profiles are a fundamental input into models to quantify the behavior of asphalt pavements, and the
enhanced integrated climactic model (EICM) is the state-of-the-practice for calculating those profiles. The EICM has
also been used in other applications, such as analysis to evaluate the effects of climate change on pavements. The
calculations in the EICM for pavement temperatures can be viewed as having two primary components that together
act as a system: the thermal model describing conductance of temperatures throughout the pavement, and the
boundary conditions that include the convective terms at the pavement surface, an energy balance model to predict
the solar radiation at the surface of the pavement and a specified lower boundary condition (generally constant
temperature at defined depth). As is discussed in this presentation, the current EICM models over-predict
temperatures during hot times and in no-wind conditions, while also underpredicting (albeit to a lesser magnitude)
during cold conditions. This result implies that the increases in pavement temperatures predicted to occur with
climate change is likewise overestimated. This presentation details proposed corrections to the thermal models found
by solving the constrained inverse problem.
Bio: Dr. James Bryce is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering and the Assistant Director of the
Appalachian Transportation Institute. His primary area of research is pavement management – i.e., the application of
civil engineering, decision analysis and other related topics to finding the optimal allocation of resources for large
pavement networks. Dr. Bryce has received numerous awards for his work, including: the 2021 Weisberg Research
Award from the Marshall University College of Engineering and Computer Sciences; the 2017 Best Paper Award at the
World Conference on Pavement and Asset Management (Milan, Italy); being selected as a 2014 Marie Curie Research
Fellow; the 2013 Jack Dillard Best Paper Award from the Virginia Center for Transportation Innovation and Research for
Report (currently VTRC); the 2013 National Asphalt Pavement Association Young Leader Award; and a 2011, 2012 and
2013 Dwight D. Eisenhower Fellow by the US Federal Highway Administration.
More details at: https://unl.zoom.us/j/95721799013