CTS Webinar: Infrastructure Materials and Performance

About the Webinar

Understanding how infrastructure materials perform over time is critical to making informed design, construction, and maintenance decisions. This webinar featured two recent research efforts that examined the real-world performance of commonly used transportation infrastructure materials.

Brock Hedegaard shared insights from his recently completed research project on the causes of concrete culvert pipe joint separation, highlighting factors that influence concrete pipe performance and long-term reliability. Michael Pluimer presented findings from a study that evaluated corrugated HDPE pipes manufactured with recycled content, including how recycled materials perform in transportation infrastructure applications and considerations for their use.

The event was held in conjunction with a CTS Transportation Infrastructure Council meeting.

Watch the recording

Speakers

Brock Hedegaard is an associate professor of civil engineering at the University of Minnesota Duluth and a CTS scholar. His research focuses on the field monitoring of structural systems, particularly concrete structures, and how they move and deform over time. Hedegaard is the chair of the American Concrete Institute (ACI) Committee 444 on Structural Health Monitoring and the secretary of ACI Committee 209 on Creep and Shrinkage of Concrete.

Michael Pluimer is the director of the Advanced Materials Center and an associate professor of civil engineering at the University of Minnesota Duluth. An active member of ASTM International since 2002, Pluimer has contributed to several committees focused on plastics, rubber, quality and statistics, and plastic piping systems, and he has received multiple awards recognizing his service and leadership.