Dr. Sahadat Hossain and Dr. Warda Ashraf are combining their two areas of expertise – recycling and asphalt/concrete, respectively – to lead a feasibility study on building plastic roads, funded by the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT).
A civil engineering professor at The University of Texas at Arlington has received a two-year, $987,140 contract from the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) to investigate the use of recycled plastic pins to repair deep-seated failures on embankments and the areas around highway bridges.
Hossain has used recycled plastic pins extensively to repair shallow slopes in TxDOT’s Dallas district. The pins are about 8-10 feet long and are driven into the slopes to provide stabilization, reducing costs by more than 50% when compared to conventional methods. In addition, the project, led by Sahadat Hossain,…
Some highways, however, experience slope failures deeper below the surface than the pins can reach. To repair these, Hossain is implementing a new technique where crews remove the soil about halfway to the location of the failure, insert rows of pins, then cover the area and insert more rows of…