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2021: Materials for Transportation Infrastructure

KTH Materials Dialogue Day is a digital event (Zoom) for materials related research at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, including scientific presentations and policy information and is intended for a general audience. The topic of the 2021 September 23rd event will be on Materials for Transportation Infrastructure focusing primarily on roads and railways. The workshop will highlight the eminent importance of materials research for development of a sustainable, efficient, adaptive, and safe transport infrastructure.

The focus of the KTH Materials Dialogue Day 2021 is Materials for Transportation Infrastructure focusing primarily on roads and railways. Photo: Unsplash

There is an urgent need to find new close-loop solutions for a sustainable development and maintenance of transportation infrastructure at increasing transportation and mobility demands, constrained public sector budgets and climate challenges. Addressing these issues requires new and heavily improved infrastructure materials, optimized from functional, reliability and life cycle perspectives.

Development of innovative infrastructure materials with focus on improved durability, low energy, all-weather workability, as well as materials recycling and reuse is thus already an active area of research with high future potential. Material technology developments are also important enablers for expanding infrastructure functionality beyond transportation to areas such as energy-harvesting, urban climate regulation, water retention, transport and cleaning.

Understanding the link between material design, production, application, and its long-term performance in the field is crucial for both development of infrastructure materials and their implementation in practice as well as their societal acceptance. In this context, new experimental and modelling tools dealing with material mechanics, chemistry and physics are of particular importance. 

Registration

Program

09.00 - 09.10 Introduction, Denis Jelagin, KTH

09.10 - 09.40 A Stakeholder perspective on why material science matters to a transport authority, Robert Karlsson, Swedish Transport Administration

09.40 - 10.10 Creating the next Generation of Materials for Sustainable Roads Manfred N. Partl, KTH/Univ. of Parma

15 min coffee break  

10.25 - 10.55 Concrete for highways and other civil engineering structures, Johan Silfwerbrand, KTH

10.55 - 11.25 Cold recycling of reclaimed asphalt for the construction of low volume roads – laboratory evaluation and field construction, Christiane Raab, Empa

11.25 - 11.55 Smart infrastructure materials in a digitized world: Where are we at? Nicole Kringos, KTH

11.55 - 13.00 Lunch  

13.00 - 13.30 Performance testing of unbound granular materials and soils for road structures, Sigurdur Erlingsson, VTI 

13.30 - 14.00 Rheological characterization of cold recycled mixtures, Andrea Graziani, UNIVPM

14.00 - 14.30 Rock mass as a construction material for tunnels and caverns, Fredrik Johansson, KTH

15 min coffee break  

14.45 - 15.10 Understanding the mechanical performance of stone-based materials through modelling, Erik Olsson, LTU/KTH

15.10 - 15.35 Correlation between indoor radon exposure and uranium in Sweden, Alexander Balatsky/ Bart Olsthoorn, Nordita/KTH

Registration