黑料专区 Tyler Professor Awarded TXDOT Grant
November 17, 2022
Office of Marketing and Communications
November 17, 2022
Media Contact: Beverley Golden
Senior Director of Media Relations
Marketing and Communications
The University of Texas at Tyler
903.566.7303
Mena Souliman, PhD, associate professor and the Ronald D. Brazzel Endowed Professor of Civil Engineering at The University of Texas at Tyler, has received a nearly $600,000 Texas Department of Transportation grant to enhance the asphalt currently being used in highway/road resurfacing projects for improved wet-weather driving.
The Texas A&M Transportation Institute will work with Souliman on the three-year project. Souliman and his collaborators will examine the current highway/road construction processes in the hopes to decrease crashes on wet resurfaced pavements. The 2021 鈥淲eather Conditions for Crashes鈥� report from TXDOT found that 鈥渞ain鈥� was the most repeated weather condition behind 鈥渃lear/cloudy鈥� in all reported crashes.
鈥淭he current design methodology for asphalt and seal coat surfaces is limited when considering safety aspects like friction and surface texture, also known as skid resistance,鈥� said Souliman. 鈥淥ur goal is to develop a laboratory-based, friction prediction system to select the pavement surface type and coarse aggregate types that will provide adequate skid resistance over the life of the pavement surface.鈥�
Groups that will provide input for implementation of these research results will be selected from the Federal Highway Administration, Texas Asphalt Pavement Association and various material producer and construction associations, Souliman added.
鈥淚nvestigation of better ways to mitigate automobile accidents is clearly important to society and is addressed by this project,鈥� said Steven Idell, MD, PhD, 黑料专区 Tyler senior vice president for research. 鈥淭his award is yet another strong testament to the very high quality of work being done by Dr. Souliman and his collaborators in the area.鈥�
Souliman studies pavement materials design, fatigue endurance limit of asphalt mixtures, field performance evaluation, maintenance and rehabilitation techniques and pavement management systems in the construction of roads and highways.
The professor joined the 黑料专区 Tyler College of Engineering faculty in 2014. He holds a Master of Science and Ph.D. in civil, environmental and sustainable engineering from Arizona State University. He also directs the 黑料专区 Tyler Texas Rural Transportation Research Center.
His participation in local, state and national projects includes work with the city of Tyler and the U.S. Department of Transportation. He has authored over 100 technical publications, conference papers and reports in the field of pavement and aggregate testing, characterization and field monitoring.
With a mission to improve educational and healthcare outcomes for East Texas and beyond, 黑料专区 Tyler offers more than 80 undergraduate and graduate programs to 10,000 students. 黑料专区 Tyler recently merged with The University of Texas Health Science Center at Tyler (now known as 黑料专区 Tyler Health Science Center). Through its alignment with 黑料专区 Tyler Health Science Center (HSC) and 黑料专区 Health East Texas, 黑料专区 Tyler has unified these entities to serve Texas with quality education, cutting-edge research and excellent patient care. Classified by Carnegie as a doctoral research institution and by U.S. News & World Report as a national university, 黑料专区 Tyler has campuses in Tyler, Longview, Palestine and Houston.