Know Roads Better & Build Better Roads
Nov. - Dec. 2021, visiting RWTH Aachen University, Germany
Theodore von Kármán Fellowship
Dr Yuqing Zhang was sponsored to visit RWTH Aachen University as a Theodore von Karman fellow;
Three academic lectures were given to the engineering community at RWTH;
New research collaborations were initiated and inspried.
June 2019
Our research on waste and biomass derived bitumen for road applicaiton is reported in media
1 June 2018
Bio-bitumen research is reported in media
27 April 2018: A new paper published at Construction and Building Materials
Impact of minerals and water on bitumen-mineral adhesion and debonding behaviours using molecular dynamics simulations
Adhesion between bitumen and aggregate mainly results from van der Waals internations for neutral minerals (e.g., quartz)
Adhesion is primarily due to the electrostatic interactions for alkali minerals (e.g., calcite, albite and microcline)
The bitumen-mineral debonding due to water is a thermodynamically favourable process.
Journal link for the paper or Aston Research Explorer link (for full text)
2018-2019 British Academy GCRF Project
Pyrolysis of Municipal Organic Waste for Renewable Road Construction Materials
Global Challenges Research Fund - Networking Grant via Royal Academy of Medical Sciences
3-6 April 2018: Kick-off Activity
21 March 2018: A new paper published at Journal of Cleaner Production
Intermediate pyrolysis of organic fraction of municipal solid waste and rheological study of the pyrolysis oil for potential use as bio-bitumen
First trial of using the organic fraction of municipal solid waste, processed by the very unique intermediate pyrolysis reactor at European Bioenergy Research Institute at Aston.
Journal link for the paper or Aston Research Explorer link (for full text)
15 Jan 2018: A new paper published at International Journal of Pavement Engineering
Characteristics of damaged asphalt mixtures in tension and compression
A good summary paper of constitutive modelling for asphalt mixtures at Prof. Robert Lytton research group in the past 8 years.
7-11 Jan 2018: TRB 97th Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C., USA.
31 Dec 2017: A new paper published at Journal of Road Materials and Pavement Design
Modelling cracking damage of asphalt mixtures under compressive monotonic and repeated loads using pseudo J-integral Paris’ law
Pseudo J-integral Paris' law coefficients proved to be material properties, independent of loading rate, loading mode and temperature
You can determine the Paris' law coefficients using a monotonic load, rather than a time-consuming repeated load.
Journal link for the paper or Aston Research Explorer link (for full text)
