Invited by professor Fujian Ni and Qiao Dong, professor Birgisson from A&M Texas University visited the school of transportation. A workshop about “pavement analysis for smart pavements” was held successfully by professor Birgisson.
Dr. Bjorn Birgisson currently serves as a Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station (TEES) Distinguished Research Professor and Professor in Civil Engineering at Texas A&M University. Formerly, he served as the inaugural Director of the Center for Infrastructure Renewal. He has published over 200 technical papers in journals and proceedings and been a Principal Investigator or Co-Principal Investigator of over 50 million dollars in research funding during his academic career. Prior to joining Texas A&M, he served as a Pro Vice-Chancellor for Aston University and the Executive Dean for the School of Engineering and Applied Science and Professor of Transport Science at Aston University from January 2014 to August, 2016. Prior to that, Dr. Bjorn Birgisson was the vice president responsible for research and Professor of Highway and Railway Engineering at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden. Dr. Birgisson has served on over 20 boards of centers, institutes and companies during the last 10 years.
In the report, Professor Birgisson introduced the analysis and design towards smart pavement. He elucidated the weakness of the empirical methods in pavement design, which creates significant restrictions on, among other things development and utilization of new materials, methods and ways to make demands in procurement. Thus, he proposed a new Mechanics-based pavement design tool to monitor the situation of the road and then to enhance its performance.
Professor Qiao Dong, Tao Ma, associate professor Yuqin Zhang from Aston University and “Young overseas high-level talents” Xue Luo from Zhejiang University attended this workshop. During the procedure, educates actively participated in the discussion and professors answered their questions carefully and modestly.