Summer 2023 News

Welcome to the summer issue of our newsletters. It’s a privilege as the Director of the Nebraska Transportation Center (NTC) to share with you some of the work accomplished by our affiliated faculty, students, and centers.
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MwRSF engineers are gearing up to protect those who could be targeted by EV vehicles: in this case, American soldiers stationed at the 1,000-plus U.S. military installations at home and abroad.
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Dr. Marc Maguire’s project titled “Performance of High Early-Strength Materials Used in Concrete Bridge Repair” studied the performance of high early-strength (HES) materials used in concrete bridge repair by looking at past patch repair projects.
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Dr. Seunghee Kim was principal investigator for a Nebraska Department of Transportation (NDOT) and USDOT Federal Highway Administration funded study titled “Feasibility Study: Application of Steel Sheet-Piles for the Abutment of Water-Crossing Bridges in Nebraska”. The project tested sheet pile samples by applying shear stress in a large-scale testing setup.
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Truck platooning happens when two or more semi-trailer trucks travel closely together in a convoy and is often utilized to save fuel, improve the environment, and improve traffic operations. While this strategy is effective in those areas, it can also potentially overload structures such as girder bridges. In his project “Truck Platooning Effects on Girder Bridges: Phase II – Service”, Dr. Joshua Steelman investigates this concept
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Dr. George Constantinescu, Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Iowa, has completed Phase V of his project as part of the Mid-America Transportation Center (MATC). Titled “Development of New Design Guidelines for Protection against Erosion at Bridge Abutments”, the project investigates erosion at bridge abutments caused by severe flooding in the United States Midwest.
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An important part of research in higher education is the outreach of knowledge and collaboration potential of a project and its findings so that it may be shared and expanded upon by other universities. This newsletter highlights Dr. Jason Hawkins, Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and his February outreach trips where he presented on his research and held discussions on transportation topics with colleagues and students at Oregon State University and Arizona State University.
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As a US Department of Transportation University Transportation Center, the Mid-America Transportation Center (MATC) selects one student working under affiliated faculty as the Student of the Year. This year's recipient, Khalid Al-Kady, was awarded during the Council of University Transportation Centers (CUTC) Student Banquet that takes place at the annual Transportation Research Board meeting in Washington, D.C.
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The 2023 Mid-America Transportation Center (MATC) Scholars Program hosted 23 students from 11 Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Hispanic-Serving Institutions for a four day itinerary of informational sessions and networking opportunities.
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The Mid-America Transportation Center (MATC) Sovereign Native Youth STEM Leadership Academy took place June 18 to 22 on the University of Nebraska-Lincoln campus and brought in 33 Native youth from across the state.
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The Fifth Bridging Transportation Researchers (BTR) Conference was held August 9 and 10 with the help of over 200 researchers, program chairs, and Zoom coordinators. It is a completely online conference and over the course of the two days participants chose from sessions with a variety of topics centered around bridging.
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