TERRA E-News, January 2013 – Volume 7, Number 1
MnROAD has attracted several visitors during the past three months interested in developing a similar facility. In October, four Russians came to check out MnROAD’s unique design, development of research, construction, instrumentation, and partnerships. The Russians, from a university and a consulting firm traveling on behalf of the government, plan to develop a 3.5-kilometer test road near Rostov, Russia. The test road, which will be similar to the MnROAD mainline, is scheduled to be built in 2014 on the Russian M-4 “Interstate” to study the performance of both HMA and PCC pavements.
In November, Tomas Winnerholt, pavement design specialist for the Swedish Transport Administration, sought information related to the development of a MnROAD-type interstate test track for northern Sweden, where heavy mining trucks will be transporting iron ore across the country to a rail system in Norway. Sweden seeks to better understand the lessons learned related to running a successful test facility like MnROAD. Winnerholt also visited the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) for three weeks to exchange technical information on pavement design, rehabilitation, and construction, as well as on the implementation of intelligent construction, design-build-operate-maintain, and Sweden’s approach to prioritizing and implementing research.
In December, the Florida Department of Transportation visited MnROAD for help building a MnROAD-type “interstate mainline” test facility near Jacksonville on US-310 in 2016. The Florida DOT, focusing on concrete research only, wanted help reviewing its design, construction, instrumentation, and research partnerships. For the short term, its primary focus is to utilize a portion of the test road to help in MnROAD efforts to assess and, if possible, assist in calibrating the new concrete pavement design model of DARWin ME.