Dr. David Brill, Dr. Dan Offenbacker, Dr. Navneet Garg, Dr. Richard Ji, Qingge Jia, and Wilfredo Villafane from the Airport Technology R&D (ATR) Branch attended the Transportation Research Board’s (TRB) Annual Meeting in Washington, DC on January 5-9, 2025. The Annual Meeting provides an important opportunity for transportation professionals from around the world to connect and address topics that are crucial to advancing transportation research domestically and internationally. More than 10,000 professionals attended the meeting.

Wil Villafane participated in various meetings/presentations, subcommittees, American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) organizations, with FAA collaborators, and others related to instrumentation projects. Networking efforts included discussing similar projects, exchanging ideas, and interacting with sensor technology vendors to explore out-of-the-box ideas/solutions.

Qingge Jia participated in the Pavement Management Systems Committee, Pavement Condition Evaluation Committee, and Aircraft and Airport Compatibility Committee; and gave a status update on FAA PAVEAIR to Pavement Management Systems for Airports Subcommittee and proposed to give a TRB webinar on FAA PAVEAIR next year.

Dr. Navneet Garg participated in several workshops, including the Editorial Board of International Journal of Pavement Engineering (IJPE); an interagency panel workshop, Roads, Tracks and Runways: Life Cycle Assessment in Civil Infrastructure Policy and Practice; and various committees. He co-authored and/or presented a number of papers and presentations, such as Airport Pavement Research at FAA’s Accelerated Pavement Test Facilities at the ASCE Airfield Pavements Committee meeting, Addressing Sustainability at Airport Pavements; presented at  ICAO’s APEG meeting at Airbus HQ, FAA Experience with Embedded Sensors, a requested presentation for the Performance Instrumentation for Pavement Structure and Subgrades AKP40(2), Joint Subcommittee of AKP40 and AKG60. Dr. Garg’s co-author, Dr. Hasan Kazmee, presented Rutting Feasibility Study of Reclaimed Asphalt Pavement for Use in Airfield Asphalt Concrete Mixes under the Influence of High Aircraft Tire Pressure and Pavement Temperature. Dr. Garg also attended the AV070 Aircraft and Airport Compatibility Committee meeting, where he was appointed secretary.

Dr. Offenbacker gave a presentation titled, Evaluation of the Mechanical Responses in Clay Subgrade Under Aircraft Loading, co-authored by Dr. Brill and Dr. Garg, using data collected at the National Airport Pavement Test Facility (NAPTF) from Construction Cycle 9 and updated on current research into pavement condition assessment and pavement management to the Pavement Management Systems for Airports Subcommittee.

Dr. David Brill participated in several workshops and meetings, including the International Advisory Board of the Bearing Capacity of Roads, Railways and Airfields (BCRRA) conference. He co-authored the paper presented by Dr. Offenbacker and the paper Prediction Models for Airport Pavement Serviceability Level Index, presented at one of the poster sessions. Following the TRB meeting (1/9-1/10), Dr. Brill participated in a meeting of the ICAO Aerodrome Pavement Expert Group (APEG), hosted at Airbus America headquarters.

Dr. Richard Ji participated in the Pavement Condition Evaluation, the Concrete Pavement Construction and Rehabilitation, the Geo-Environmental and Climatic Impact on Geomaterials, and the Aircraft and Airport Compatibility Committees and discussed new nondestructive testing (NDT) technologies and newly developed equipment with attendees. He also participated in committee discussions on field-testing applications. Lessons learned in these discussions will greatly benefit data collection in NAPTF pavement monitoring program.

Jim Layton | james.layton@faa.gov