Project Description

The New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) Consultant Management Bureau’s primary responsibilities are to negotiate staffing hours/resources with engineering design consultants, and to monitor the consultant's costs. Currently the Consultant Management Bureau uses knowledge of past and current projects as well as engineering judgment to estimate consultant costs.

The proposed research will focus on several major issues:

In order to ascertain the reliability of visual inspection (VI) used to inspect highway bridges nationwide according to National Bridge Inspection Standards and to identify factors affecting the reliability, Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) carried out a detailed study in 2001. During this study, 49 inspectors from 25 different States participated in the inspection of a number of control bridges associated with the FHWA Nondestructive Evaluation (NDE) Validation Center.

Research Problem and Background

State-of-the-art technology is available which incorporates shredded scrap tire rubber known as crumb rubber modifier (CRM) as a modifier for asphalt cement in paving mixtures. CRM is the general term to describe all rubber particles obtained from the shredded of discarded tires which are reduced up to a size of 6.35 mm. Two technologies are most commonly used to incorporate crumb rubber in asphalt pavement applications, namely, the wet and dry process.