Summer Research Assistant at ITRE
For the summer, I have come on board as a research assistant on a project at the Institute for Transportation Research and Education. This research center is located on NC State’s Centennial Campus. I found myself here after emailing my friend and former classmate (while he was still a PhD candidate) Dr. Bastian Schroeder who works in their Highway Systems Group.
The project I am working on is a study of an all-weather paint product for use in work zones, headed up by my former mentor Dr. Joseph Hummer. The new pavement marking was developed by 3M and tested earlier at the Texas Transportation Institute, but we have been contracted by 3M to study it through a field evaluation. Typical pavement markings are retroreflective in dry conditions through the use of glass beads embedded in the paint, but when it rains, they do a poor job reflecting the headlights back to the user. The 3M system has special elements that are retroreflective even when under a layer of water, making it safer for the user to drive in dark rainy conditions. The image below shows a microscopic closeup of the 3M system with both glass beads and 3M’s specially designed elements. The two following show pavement markings without the 3M elements and with the 3M elements. In both of those, the image on the right shows the lane lines’ retroreflectivity in wet conditions. Note how the lane lines are much more difficult to see without the 3M elements when under water.
In our experiment we are choosing work zones that will require lane shifts in Wake and other neighboring counties in North Carolina. Our goal is to see how drivers react to the different lane markings in nighttime rainy conditions. To gather this data, we are monitoring the placement of the pavement markings, and setting up cameras at the work sites to collect video of vehicles operating in nighttime rainy conditions. For me, it means I’m out in the field a lot with my hardhat and orange vest setting up cameras, running retroreflective tests on the lane lines, and overseeing their placement by contractors. It will be an exciting summer.
I took the image below during my first day in the field on I-85 near Henderson, NC. On the left is the standard pavement marking with only glass beads. On right is the 3M pavement marking with the 3M’s retroreflective elements also dropped onto the paint with the glass beads.
August 11th, 2009 at 10:13 pm
[...] at the Institute for Transportation Research and Education. I started the summer working on a project that looked at new pavement marking retroreflective technology. We looked at the effect of these in [...]