Highway Infrastructure Program
The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) report card for America's infrastructure states that while road use is expected to increase by more than sixty percent in the next twenty years, nearly sixty percent of the nation's roads are in only poor to fair and substandard road conditions are a major factor in 30 percent of fatal accidents. The highway infrastructure system in the US plays an important role in the commerce, economic development and security of the nation. These systems are deteriorating rapidly because of age, heavy use, overloading and deferred maintenance. While the highway infrastructure system needs to be enhanced and maintained in order to provide the mobility needs of the nation, improvements must also be safe, efficient and environmentally benign. The US spends over 100 billion dollars a year on maintaining, rehabilitating and constructing highway infrastructure. Imaginative, technically skilled, qualified engineers are needed to undertake the task of maintaining, upgrading and building the highway infrastructure system of the new century.
Program Description
The Highway Infrastructure Program (HIP) is a multi-disciplinary interdepartmental program designed to enhance knowledge in highway and transportation related fields including highway engineering and planning, pavement analysis and design, pavement management and rehabilitation, structural engineering, highway and roadside safety, construction materials technology, project management, information technology, environmental issues. WPI offers degrees at the Masters and Ph. D. levels. Each program is individually tailored and approved courses can be chosen from a wide selection of courses offered within WPI.
Contact PersonHighway Infrastructure Program Classes
Highway Design
Highway Safety
- CE 590S2 Impact Analysis and Structural Crashworthiness
- CE 590S3 Accident Analysis
- CE 590S4 Roadside Design
- CE 524 Stress Analysis by the Finite Element Method
- CE 526 Advanced Finite Elements
- MG 527 Risk Management
- CE 543 Highway Design and Traffic Safety
- CE 544 Highway Safety Audits and Safety Management
- FPE 574 Process Safety Management
Highway Materials
- CE 590M1 Highway Materials (core)
- CE 537 Adv. Properties & Production of Structural Materials
- CE 538 Pavement Analysis and Design
- CE 550 Theoretical Soil Mechanics
- CE 552 Earth Structures
Highway Administration and Management
- CE 590A1 Highway Administration and Management (core)
- CE 501 Professional Practice
- CE 535 Integration of Design Construction
- CE 583 Construction Law Civil Engineers
- CE 584 Cost Estimating
Highway Infrastructure Program Research
HIP students at WPI can have a wide variety of choices for practical research and project work - they can conduct indepth basic research, perform laboratory based research, or work in collaboration with industrial and governmental partners. Students interested in ultimately pursuing a Ph.D. and a career in academia should choose research requiring a thesis whereas students interested in a career outside academia may choose industrial project work. Students have a great deal of flexibility in defining their own education and training programs.
Current and past research conducted in the HIP is being funded by:
- Federal Highway Administration (FHWA)
- National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP)
- Massachusetts Highway Department
- New England Transportation Consortium (NETC)
- National Science Foundation (NSF)
Various State Departments of Transportation Current projects include:
- Side Impact Crash Testing
- In-Service Performance of Traffic Barriers
- Simulation of Roadside Safety Hardware
- Superpave Technology
- Pavement Smoothness and Ride Quality Measurement
- Approach to Implementation of Innovation for Transportation and Highway Environment
- Development of Training Material on Recycling of Asphalt Pavements
Professors at WPI actively practice a lifelong pursuit of knowledge. Below is a listing of the research interests of the environmental engineering professors. Click on their name to see their research home page. If you would like any additional information or are interested in developing a project, send them an e-mail!
Tahar El-Korchi - Carbon and oxynitride glass fiber reinforced cement composites; development of high strength composites; development of novel tensile testing techniques; reliability of fiber reinforced cement composites; freezing and thawing durability of concrete; detection of pavement surface distress using image technology; the use of imaging technology for mechanical testing of materials; fracture mechanics testing of asphalt concrete. tek@wpi.edu +1-508-831-5518
Malcolm Ray - Roadside and highway safety, design and analysis of impact resistant structures and crashworthiness of transportation vehicles. Impact mechanics, nonlinear dynamic finite element analysis, nonlinear dynamics, full-scale crash testing and structural design. Risk and cost effectiveness analysis of roadside and highway safety alternatives. mhray@wpi.edu +1-508-831-5340
Rajib Mallick - Pavement design and construction, specifically, design and construction of hot mix asphalt, Superpave, Stone Matrix Asphalt, and pavement recycling. rajib@wpi.edu +1-508-831-5289
Learn more about:
Highway Infrastructure Program Facilities
The Civil and Environmental Engineering Department has extensive facilities for research in highway safety, highway materials and crashworthiness. The laboratories include a materials and structures laboratory, an asphalt technology laboratory with new Superpave equipment, a structural mechanics impact laboratory and computer laboratories with state of-the-art computer and network facilities.
Maintained by webmaster@wpi.eduLast modified: May 25, 2007 11:14:07