Thursday, October 15
3:30 p.m. - 4:30 p.m. CDT
Room 1130, Mechanical Engineering Building

Part of the Fall 2009 CTS Seminar Series.

In conjunction with the CTS Transportation Planning and the Environment Research Council meeting, which begins at 2:00 p.m.

Drainage of pavement base course and subgrade materials is important to provide sustained foundation support of pavements. In Minnesota, and in most other locations around the globe, this drainage is accomplished with the conventional longitudinal edge-drain configuration and, in certain conditions, with transverse drains.

This seminar will discuss a field experiment designed to test whether an alternative drain configuration might have a significant effect on drainage amount and moisture conditions beneath pavements. The experiment evaluated the efficacy of selected drain configurations, including the conventional edge-drain system and two centerline configurations suggested by county engineers in Minnesota. Testing took place from March 2006 until November 2008 on a newly constructed 8-mile section of Nobles County CSAH 35 near Worthington.

John Nieber is a bioproducts and biosystems engineering professor at the University of Minnesota. His interests include hydrologic process discovery through field experimentation, data synthesis, and modeling; development of models for simulation and prediction of hydrologic processes and mass transport processes; and assessing the impact of land-use activities on the hydrology and water quality of ground water, streams, lakes, and wetlands.

Contact Joe Barbeau, 612-626-2862 or barb0092@umn.edu.