TRANSPORTATION

ENGINEERING

INTRODUCTION

Transportation Engineering under the Civil Engineering Department has been very active in both applied and scientific research. Transportation Engineering includes the following specialties:

  • Planning
  • Highway design
  • Pavement design
  • Asphalt pavement materials
  • Quality control and quality assurance (QC/QA)
  • Airport pavement design and management
  • Traffic engineering
  • Safety

 

Faculty members in the Transportation option are conducting various applied research projects which are funded by different governmental agencies such as King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST), Saudi ARAMCO, the Ministry of Communications (MOC), SABIC, municipalities, etc. As a result of such research activities, several areas of excellence have been developed including highway safety, traffic management, transportation planning, highway geometric design, pavement design, evaluation and management.

 

LABORATORY AND RESEARCH FACILITIES

Traffic Engineering Laboratory:

The available equipment includes: Traver deaken weighbridge devices; manual traffic counters; highway design turning templates; intersection model; traffic signals and controller; distance measuring equipment; noisemeters; and various software and manuals for designing and analyzing transportation facilities.

 

Pavement Engineering and Research Laboratory:

The Pavement Engineering Research Laboratory contains up-to-date highway and airport materials testing and evaluation equipment including an SHRP binder, Environmental Conditioning System evaluation (ECS) and a gyratory compactor for SUPERPAVE asphalt mix design; dynamic shear rheometer; bending beam rheometer; pressure aging vessel; rolling thin-film oven; rotational viscometer; asphalt content determination oven; asphalt concrete resilient modulus; rutting and fatigue test setups; a microwave oven; a thin-film oven; asphalt basic tests setup; viscosity testing setup; an asphalt mix compactor (Marshall,Kneading and Beam); a slurry seal testing setup; a foamed asphalt unit; an emulsion production unit; desiccating cabinets; a Versa tester (50 kN); water baths; a wheel-tracking test unit; an L.A. test, and Marshall, Hveem, and triaxial testing units; QC and QA testing setups; pavement deflection and profile setup.

 

SERVICES AND RESEARCH

 

The currently active areas include:

SHORT COURSES OFFERED
  • Highway Safety Problems in Gulf Countries and Improvement Techniques
  • Transportation Planning and Traffic Engineering Fundamentals
  • Highway Safety Engineering
  • Personal Computer Applications in Transportation Engineering
  • Pavement Evaluation and Maintenance Management
  • Asphalt Concrete and Constituent Materials
  • Asphalt Mix Design and Quality Control Methods for Gulf Countries
  • Microcomputer Applications in Pavement Engineering
  • Testing and Quality Control Procedures of Soil, Concrete and Pavements
  • Pavement Design and Maintenance Techniques
  • Pavement Maintenance and Rehabilitation Techniques
  • Stabilization of Indigenous Soils and Assessment of Pavement