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Appendix C: Amplifying Questions

For decades, transportation professionals in the United States have recognized that it can be difficult to approve and specify new materials and manufactured products within the standard highway construction practices of State departments of transportation. At the same time, significant advancements have occurred in the invention and innovation of superior materials, including metals, concrete, asphalt, coatings, composites, and high technology add-ons.

While the American highway industry is slow to respond, numerous other industries—including national defense, energy, and to some degree, commercial construction—quickly adopt these superior materials. In addition, the highway industry in many European nations enjoys more widespread adoption of superior materials, with seemingly fewer obstacles, than in the United States.

Recognition of the failure of the American highway industry to quickly adopt superior materials is one of the drivers behind the need for this study. We believe it is important to explore the use of more superior materials in the construction of our highway infrastructure. As a result, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) International Technology Scanning Program initiated this scanning study of European materials and practices.

For purposes of our study, “superior materials” are defined as those materials and manufactured products that do the following:

Furthermore, projects on which the superior materials can be employed include the following:

As part of the overall study, the scanning team will seek answers to the following general questions:

In each the countries we will visit, we wish to meet with individuals in the following three categories:

  1. Representatives of the national highway laboratories, including a visit to the testing facilities and/or ongoing field experiments.

  2. Highway contractors, preferably on ongoing projects employing innovative superior materials.

  3. Technical leaders (e.g. chief engineers or senior materials engineers) in the various transport ministries (or equivalent), providing an opportunity to exchange ideas on introducing superior materials in highway projects.

In preparation for the visit, the scanning team developed the following questions. They are intended to assist the dialogue and convey the specific issues on which we seek the wisdom of our European counterparts. While the intent of our visit is to get answers to these questions, we do not intend to limit the information that our hosts wish to provide.

MATERIAL INTRODUCTION

  1. What is a vendor's standard procedure for approaching an owner with a new material that the vendor believes can provide superior performance?

  2. Who are the first people to review a potential new material? For example, is a panel formed of in-house specialists who can determine if further evaluation is warranted?

  3. When a need for a more superior material is identified, how is the industry queried for potential solutions to fill that need?

  4. Is a formal risk assessment made to determine if superior materials may prove beneficial to meet a given challenge?

  5. If the owner develops a product in-house, how does its acceptance into standard practice differ than if a vendor introduced it?

MATERIAL EVALUATION

  1. How do you define “superior performance?” Does this mean that the material lasts longer, costs less, has a lower whole-life cost, and/or is more reliable (has a lower risk of premature failure)?

  2. When and how are the claims of superiority of the material offered by the vendor (seller) verified by the owner (purchaser)?

  3. Is there a standard process in place to determine when and how to evaluate new materials?

  4. Has it been necessary to develop new test methods and/or equipment to evaluate new materials?

  5. If new test methods are developed, is consideration given toward using them for material quality verification during construction? If so, what skill level (training) is often necessary?

  6. Is a particular emphasis made on developing rapid test procedures that, if used in construction for verification, can expedite the feedback loop during quality control?

  7. To prove “superior” performance, what methods are used: accelerated test methods, simulation, or long-term, full-scale field trials? What are typical periods (durations) of evaluation of a material before a decision is made?

  8. Who conducts the testing/evaluation of the material? A national laboratory? Private consultant?

  9. Who pays for the testing/evaluation of the material?

MATERIAL SPECIFICATION

  1. How does the owner typically buy materials for ongoing routine applications?

  2. How can a specification be developed to ensure that the contractor (builder) provides superior materials?

  3. In the United States, most materials specifications are modeled after AASHTO or ASTM International (formerly American Society for Testing and Materials) standards. The process of developing a specification can take many years. Is there a faster method of creating and agreeing on standardized test methods for materials?

  4. In the United States, a new material is often specified under a “special provision” to the contract for a specific project. As the use of the material becomes more common, a “standard specification” is developed, but this process can take years. Is this process similar in your country? If so, how quickly are your superior materials moved from “special” to “standard” specification? How does this process work?

  5. When a material is evaluated and deemed superior in performance, how often does it become a standard of practice? How long after the evaluation is over is the product typically used?

  6. Does the vendor of a material contribute to the development of the material specification? How often does this occur? In what capacity do they contribute (e.g. panel membership, providing a “guide” specification)?

  7. Are specifications for new materials typically prescriptive based (in which the process of constructing the material is specified) or end-result based (in which the final product as built is evaluated for quality)?

MATERIAL CONSTRUCTION, QUALITY CONTROL, AND QUALITY ASSURANCE

  1. Are statistical acceptance methods used during construction to assess quality? How are lot sizes and variabilities established for a new material?

  2. For fabricators of some materials (e.g., vendors for prestressed concrete girders), is an owner-approved quality plan required before production proceeds? What does this plan typically include? For example, quality-control procedures, personnel qualifications, and test equipment standards?

  3. Is specialized equipment sometimes required when using new materials? Is there a formal approval process for this equipment in addition to the material?

MATERIAL PERFORMANCE VERIFICATION

  1. What performance standards are typically used (e.g., pavement distress)? What process is used to define these standards? Are users of the highways (the public) involved in this process?

  2. Is the performance of field trials of new and superior materials formally tracked? If so, by whom and how?

  3. Can your pavement or bridge management systems be used to track the performance of projects employing superior materials? Is construction or materials data included or linked to the performance database? Are “lesser” materials (e.g., guardrail or retaining walls) tracked in a management system as well?

  4. Are assessments made of the value provided by the superior materials compared to the additional cost? Is whole-life costing used in this assessment?

SPECIFIC MATERIALS AND PRODUCTS OF INTEREST

  1. Please list five to 10 specific materials that have been identified as providing superior performance when evaluated by your agency. On what basis was your decision made (e.g., initial cost, whole-life cost, longer performance period, reliability)? Examples of particular materials or techniques of interest to the scanning team include the following:

    • Drainage products

    • Geotechnical modular wall systems

    • Soil improvement products

    • Signing materials

    • Striping materials

    • Structural composites and steels

    • Performance-enhancing admixtures/additives for concrete or asphalt

    • Materials for rapid reconstruction of concrete pavement (are specifications used for in-place strength to expedite opening to traffic?)

    • Materials for rutting resistance from studded tire wear (e.g., thin bonded overlays of polyester concrete)

    • Dowel bars for concrete pavements of ultra-long life (more than 80 years)

    • Traffic controllers (signal controllers)

    • Materials that address thermal differentials and associated density differentials in asphalt pavements

    • Retaining walls (e.g., tieback anchors, soil nails, or other soil reinforcement materials)

    • Materials to minimize moisture sensitivity of asphalt binder in asphalt pavements

    • Stabilization materials for pavement bases

    • Polymer modifiers for asphalt cement that provide ultra-long life or other superior performance

    • Materials for mitigation of problems with roadways built on expansive (high volume change) soils such as heavy clays

    • Process additions in cement (What are typical percentages? Does the use of these process additions result in different percentages of supplemental cementitious materials—fly ash, ground granulated blast furnace slag, silica fume—being used at the batch plant?)

    • Materials for asphalt pavement maintenance

    • Fiber-reinforced composite materials

    • Processes used to expedite the acceptance of concrete, soil, and asphalt (e.g., density)

POLICY AND COST ISSUES

  1. Do governments and/or agencies have any legislation, regulations, or policies that endorse, encourage, expedite, or financially support the adoption of new technology? What pressures or lobbying led to the adoption of this legislation, regulation, or policy?

  2. What procedures have been implemented to shorten the time needed to develop and implement superior materials?

  3. Are any superior materials beneficial to the environment, compared to conventional alternatives?

  4. What are your standard implementation practices for new ideas, technologies, and materials?

  5. When demand for a new material is identified, is it publicized (advertised) to allow competitive forces to offer various alternatives?

  6. Do you allow specification of proprietary products? Is special justification required? If so, what justification is often used?

  7. Are there additional obstacles to using materials not invented in your country (i.e., importing technological advancements)?

ROLES OF STAKEHOLDERS

  1. Do you collaborate with other countries, agencies, universities, vendors, contractors, etc., to identify, evaluate, and specify new materials?

  2. Do you a share your results of identifying, evaluating, and specifying new materials with other countries, agencies, authorities, etc.?

  3. What role does the product manufacturer have in verifying the performance claims? What role do the product manufacturer's competitors have in the verification process?

  4. Are practices for using superior materials different for concessionaires than for government agencies? Of the two, which tends to be more conservative in adopting new materials? Do they share results, or are independent evaluations common? Do multi-country private industries tend to bring things across borders?

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Page last modified on November 7, 2014
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