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    <copyright>Copyright © 2026. National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.</copyright>
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    <managingEditor>tris-trb@nas.edu (Bill McLeod)</managingEditor>
    <webMaster>tris-trb@nas.edu (Bill McLeod)</webMaster>
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      <title>Non-Nuclear Methods for Compaction Control of Unbound Soil and Granular Layers</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/1530339</link>
      <description><![CDATA[Proper density in the pavement, base, and subgrade layers is critical for ensuring a long-lasting road that meets performance expectations. Transportation agencies and contractors must have reliable devices and methods to determine in-situ density. KYTC inspectors and engineers use nuclear gauges to perform soil compaction tests to measure soil density and water content. But they are expensive to maintain, require special storage and safety considerations, repeated training, and certification for their use. In the past 20 years, extensive research and development into non-nuclear density gauges (NNDG) has been performed. NNDGs can offer all of the benefits of the NDG while eliminating the need for licenses, hassles, and costs of NNDG ownership. Examples of NNDGs used in transportation include dynamic cone penetrometers, light falling weight deflectometers, light weight deflectometers, and soil density gauges, among others. This research will investigate the current state of the practice for the use of non-nuclear test methods for the compaction control of unbound soil and granular layers.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Mon, 06 Aug 2018 14:53:01 GMT</pubDate>
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      <title>Development of In-Place Density Method for Cold In-Place Recycling</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/1403620</link>
      <description><![CDATA[Typically, in-place compaction of asphalt bound layers is controlled through the measurement of the density of the compacted mat and the calculation of in-place air voids.  In the case of hot-mix asphalt (HMA), a combination of cores and nuclear density gauge is used to determine the in-place density of the compacted mat following well-established American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) and Agency’s procedures.  The implementation of the same procedures for cold in-place recycling (CIR) faces serious limitations due to: (1) the inability of cutting cores from the CIR mat until full curing of the CIR mix has occurred which requires 10-14 days; and (2) the ineffectiveness of the nuclear density gauge during the compaction process because of the high moisture content of the CIR mix.
The above limitations have led to the construction of CIR projects without the effective control of in-place compaction.  Hence, the overall objective of this research project is to develop a practical method to measure the in-place density of the CIR layer during the construction and compaction process. First, the possible methodologies that can be used for directly or indirectly measuring the in-place density of CIR layer will be identified. Second, the promising technologies will be evaluated in the laboratory. Finally, the laboratory-validated method will be implemented on field projects and guidelines will be developed for inclusion in construction specifications. 
]]></description>
      <pubDate>Wed, 13 Apr 2016 11:47:16 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/1403620</guid>
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      <title>Characterization and Modeling of Photon Absorption in Asphalt Materials for Improved Accuracy and Consistency of Nuclear Density Measurement</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/1356625</link>
      <description><![CDATA[Although the nuclear method has been widely used in the compaction measurement of both soils and asphalt pavements, its accuracy for asphalt pavements is not as good as that for soils. Due to this issue, many disputes have incurred in construction projects, which resulted in replacement of the nuclear test method with the core sample method in many state departments of transportation (DOTs) for quality assurance or acceptance including the Region II states, although most contractors still use it on quality control as a fast and economic test method. The previous investigation disclosed that the above disputes can mainly attribute to the effect of asphalt's chemical constitution on the nuclear gauge count readings. There are three basic types of photon interaction with matter, i.e., the Compton, photoelectric, and pair production effects. The first two effects are dominant in the existing nuclear test methods. Attenuation from the Compton effect is proportional to physical density; however attenuation from the photoelectric effect depends on atomic number or composition. Therefore, to accurately measure material density, the relative composition effect needs to be corrected. In other words, the Compton and photoelectric effects need to be decoupled. The goal of this project is to improve the accuracy and consistency of the nuclear test methods in asphalt pavement construction. To this end, we will first investigate the energy absorption difference between asphalt and aggregate materials. Experiments will be conducted to test the energy absorption rates of asphalt binders, mixtures, and soil materials using different nuclear sources. The nuclear gauge count reading changing with asphalt material density and microstructure will be characterized and modeled. The correlation between actual block densities and nuclear gauge count readings will be analyzed and understood, and photon absorption will be simulated through particle transmission analysis, and an appropriate calibration equation will be developed.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Fri, 05 Jun 2015 01:00:49 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/1356625</guid>
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