Albedo is a measure of a surface’s reflectivity — surfaces with low albedo reflect less light than do surfaces with high albedo. This has several implications for combatting phenomena such as the urban heat island effect. “Cool pavements,” those high in albedo, reflect more sunlight into the atmosphere, increasing ambient temperatures less than dark pavements.

News

• What can cities and towns do to lower extreme temperatures? (Ask MIT Climate, July 2023)
• Cool pavement is like sunscreen for streets. Can it take the heat out of concrete cities? (The Globe and Mail, July 2023)
• Extreme heat kills inequitably: Reflective pavements can help, but city action is required. (The Hill, August 2022)
• Q&A: Randolph Kirchain on how cool pavements can mitigate climate change. (MIT News, March 2022)
• Solutions to extreme heat can be found in our streets. (Boston Globe, April 2021)
• Cool pavements research builds as temperatures rise (Smart Cities Dive, September 2021)
• Could ‘cool pavements’ help in the battle against climate change? (Yahoo News, August 2021)

Topic Summaries

• Mitigating Climate Change with Reflective Pavements (November 2020)
• Urban Heat Islands (June 2019)
• Albedo Information Sheet (April 2019)

Research Briefs

• A High-Level Analysis of Context-Dependent Albedo Effects (May 2015)
• Quantifying Climate Impacts of Surface Albedo (July 2015)
• The Impact of Changes to Surface Albedo on Radiative Forcing (January 2016)
• Quantifying the impact of pavement reflectivity on radiative forcing and building energy demand in neighborhoods (March 2017)
• Climate Change Mitigation Potential of Pavement Albedo (January 2018)

Publications

• AzariJafari, Hessam, et al. “Urban-scale evaluation of cool pavement impacts on the urban heat Island effect and climate change.” Environmental Science & Technology 55.17 (2021): 11501-11510.
• Gregory, J., AzariJafari, H., Vahidi, E., Guo, F., Ulm, F.J., Kirchain, R. “The role of concrete in life cycle greenhouse gas emissions of US buildings and pavements.” PNAS. September 14, 2021 118 (37).

In economics, competition plays a regulatory function in balancing supply and demand: as competition increases, the price for similar goods and services is expected to decrease. As transportation agencies search for new, cost-effective ways to preserve existing infrastructure assets, our research shows how increasing inter-industry competition (meaning between firms who pave with material substitutes) can have an impact on the price of paving materials. The work suggests that the introduction of policies that promote industry-wide competition can potentially offer agencies a way to be more efficient with their financial resources.

Topic Summaries

• Industry Competition and Paving Material Unit Costs (August 2020)
• Measuring the Impact of Competition on Paving Material Prices (November 2017)

Research Briefs

• Improving Pavement Network Conditions Through Competition (October 2020)
• Estimating The Impact Of Competition (February 2016)

Peer-Reviewed Publications

• Swei, O., Miller, T.R, Akbarian, M., Gregory, J., and Kirchain, R. “Effects of Industry Competition in the Paving Sector.” Under Review.

Webinars

• Measuring the Impact of Competition on Paving Material Prices

The CSHub has long investigated multifunctional concrete, and has uncovered a way to store energy in a mixture of carbon black, cement, and water. The technology has potential applications towards bulk energy storage, on-road EV charging, self-heating pavements, energy-autarkic structures, and more.

News

• MIT News: MIT conductive concrete consortium cements five-year research agreement with Japanese industry (May 2024)
• MIT engineers create an energy-storing supercapacitor from ancient materials (MIT News, July 2023)
• Is cement the solution to storing renewable energy? Engineers at MIT think so. (Boston Globe, August 2023)
• Energy-storing concrete could form foundations for solar-powered homes (NewScientist, July 2023)

Research Briefs

• Next-generation concrete: Combining loadbearing and energy storage solutions (September 2024)
• Early-Stage Building Lifecycle Optimization of Cost & Carbon Impact (April 2021)

Publications

• Chanut, N., Stefaniuk, D., Weaver, J. C., Zhu, Y., Shao-Horn, Y., Masic, A., & Ulm, F. J. (2023). Carbon–cement supercapacitors as a scalable bulk energy storage solution. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120(32), e2304318120.
• Soliman, N. A., Chanut, N., Deman, V., Lallas, Z., & Ulm, F. J. (2020). Electric energy dissipation and electric tortuosity in electron conductive cement-based materials. Physical Review Materials, 4(12), 125401.

In 2017, America’s roads received a D rating by the American Society of Civil Engineers. For cities and states to improve their grade, they must first be able to accurately measure the quality of their pavements. Unfortunately, this often proves expensive and challenging.

To address this problem, CSHub researchers have created Carbin, an app that directs users to their destination while measuring pavement quality and its effect on fuel consumption.

With every trip they take, Carbin users contribute to a growing public map of pavement and emissions data that can help to inform infrastructure repair and fight climate change. Carbin has already surveyed hundreds of thousands of lane miles around the globe in countries like Mexico, China, and the United States.

Learn more about the app and the research behind it in this article in The New York Times or in the topic summary and research brief below. You can download Carbin on Google Play or the App Store.

News

• MIT News: What a Single Car can Say About Traffic (February 2021)
• MIT News: Crowdsourcing data on road quality and excess fuel consumption (May 2021)
• The New York Times: Mapping Potholes by Phone (January 2020)
• Cheddar: Crowdsourcing Road-Quality Info With the Carbin App (December 2019)
• MIT News: Reading the Heartbeat of the Road (January 2019)

Topic Summaries

• Carbin: Crowdsourcing Pavement Data (March 2020)

Research Briefs

• Carbin: Crowdsourcing Road Conditions at Scale (September 2021)
• Assessing Road Quality Using Crowdsourced Smartphone Measurements (July 2020)

Publications

• Botshekan, M., Asaadi, E., Roxon, J., Ulm, F. J., Tootkaboni, M., & Louhghalam, A. (2021). Smartphone-enabled road condition monitoring: From accelerations to road roughness and excess energy dissipation. Proceedings of the Royal Society A, 477(2246), 20200701.
• Botshekan, M., Asadi, E., Roxon, J., Ulm, F-J., Tootkaboni, M., Louhghalam, A. (2021). Smartphone-enabled road condition monitoring: from accelerations to road roughness and excess energy dissipation. The Proceedings of the Royal Society, 477: 20200701. 20200701
• Botshekan, M., Roxon, J., Wanichkul, A., Chirananthavat, T., Chamoun, J., Ziq, M., . . . Ulm, F. (2020). Roughness-induced vehicle energy dissipation from crowdsourced smartphone measurements through random vibration theory. Data-Centric Engineering, 1, E16.
• Botshekan, M., Ulm, F-J. (2021). “Spatial and temporal memory effects in the Nagel-Schreckenberg model for crowdsourced traffic property determination.” Physical Review E, 104, 044102.

Life cycle assessment (LCA) considers all life-cycle phases from initial construction to demolition. For pavements, this includes the operation, maintenance, and end of life phases, and factors such as traffic delay, lighting demand, and future maintenance. CSHub models quantify environmental impacts across a pavement’s life cycle from manufacturing to disposal and offer detailed analyses of the use phase.

News

• MIT News: New framework empowers pavement life-cycle decision-making while reducing data collection burden (August 2024)
• Real Clear Energy: ‘Nutrition Facts’ for Emissions: Why EPA Must Account for the Whole Life Cycle in Low Carbon Labels (October 2024)
• The Hill: We’re overhauling our cars in the name of energy efficiency — why not our roads? (January 2024)
• MIT News: Study: Carbon-neutral pavements are possible by 2050, but rapid policy and industry action are needed (February 2023)
• MIT News: Concrete’s role in reducing building and pavement emissions (September 2021)
• Yahoo News: Could ‘cool pavements’ help in the battle against climate change? (August 2021)
• MIT News: Countering climate change with cool pavements (August 2021)
• The Boston Globe: Solutions to Extreme Heat Can be Found in Our Streets (August 2021)
• The Conversation: Lighter Pavement Really Does Cool Cities (June 2021)

Topic Summaries

• Mitigating Climate Change with Reflective Pavements (November 2020)
• Context Dependent Pavement Life Cycle Analysis (July 2019)
• Life Cycle Thinking: Pavements (March 2018)

Research Briefs

• Solutions for Net-zero Carbon Concrete in U.S. Pavements (July 2021)
• Life Cycle Carbon Uptake of the United States Pavement Network (January 2021)
• Impact of Use Phase in Pavement Life Cycle Assessment: A Case Study of Alternative Designs in Different Contexts (April 2014)
• Key Drivers of Uncertainty in Pavement LCA (November 2012)
• Comparative Pavement LCAs With Uncertainty (June 2012)
• Network, Pavements and Fuel Consumption (April 2012)
• Adopting a Life Cycle Perspective (April 2011)
• Designing for Sustainable Pavements (March 2011)

Publications

• Akbarian M., Moeini-Ardakani S.S., Ulm F.-J., Nazzal M., “Mechanistic Approach to Pavement-Vehicle Interaction and Its Impact on Life-Cycle Assessment,” Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2306, Pages 171-179, 2012
• AzariJafari, H., Guest, G., Kirchain, R., Gregory, J., & Amor, B. (2021). Towards comparable environmental product declarations of construction materials: Insights from a probabilistic comparative LCA approach. Building and Environment, 190, 107542.
• AzariJafari, H., Guest, G., Kirchain, R., Gregory, J., Amor, B. “Towards comparable environmental product declarations of construction materials: Insights from a probabilistic comparative LCA approach”, Building and Environment, 190: 2021, 107542. 2021.
• AzariJafari, H., Guo, F., Gregory, J., & Kirchain, R. (2023). Solutions to achieve carbon-neutral mixtures for the US pavement network. The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, 1-14.
• AzariJafari, H., Rangelov, M., Gregory, J., & Kirchain, R. (2023). Suitability of EPDs for Supporting Life Cycle and Comparative Analysis of Concrete Mixtures. Environmental Science & Technology, 57(19), 7321-7327
• Gregory, J., AzariJafari, H., Vahidi, E., Guo, F., Ulm, F.J., Kirchain, R. “The role of concrete in life cycle greenhouse gas emissions of US buildings and pavements.” PNAS. September 14, 2021 118 (37).
• Gregory, J., Noshadravan, A., Olivetti, E.A., Kirchain, R., “A Methodology for Robust Comparative Life Cycle Assessments Incorporating Uncertainty.” Environmental Science & Technology, Vol. 50: Issue. 12: Pages. 6397-6405.
• Gregory, Jeremy, et al. “The role of concrete in life cycle greenhouse gas emissions of US buildings and pavements.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 118.37 (2021): e2021936118.
• Guo, F., AzariJafari, H., Gregory, J., Kirchain, R. “Environmental and economic evaluations of treatment strategies for pavement network performance-based planning”, Transportation Research D: Transport and Environment. Volume 99, October 2021, 103016
• Guo, Fengdi, et al. “A weighted multi-output neural network model for the prediction of rigid pavement deterioration.” International Journal of Pavement Engineering 23.8 (2022): 2631-2643.
• Huang, Y., Wolfram, P., Miller, R., Azarijafari, H., Guo, F., An, K., … & Wang, C. (2022). Mitigating life cycle GHG emissions of roads to be built through 2030: Case study of a Chinese province. Journal of Environmental Management,
• J. Gregory, A. Noshadravan, O. Swei, X. Xu, R. Kirchain, “The importance of incorporating uncertainty into pavement life cycle cost and environmental impact analyses,” Proceedings of the Pavement Life-Cycle Assessment Symposium 2017, Champaign, IL, April 12-13, 2017
• J. Mack, J. Gregory, R. Kirchain, “Accounting for Rehabilitation Activity Uncertainty in a Pavement Life Cycle Assessment using Probability and Decision Tree Analysis,” Proceedings of the International Concrete Sustainability Conference, Miami, FL, May 11-13, 2015.
• J. Mack, X. Xu, J. Gregory, R. Kirchain, “Developing robust rehabilitation scenario profiles for life cycle assessment using decision tree analysis,” Proceedings of the International Symposium on Pavement LCA, Davis, CA, October 14-16, 2014.
• Kirchain, R., Gregory, J., Olivetti, E. “Environmental life-cycle assessment.” Nature Materials, 16 693–697 (2017)
• Loijos A., Akbarian M., Sahni S., Ochsendorf J., “Sensitivity Analysis of the Life Cycle Environmental Performance of Asphalt and Concrete Pavements,” Concrete Sustainability Conference, 2010
• Loijos A., Santero N., Ochsendorf J. “Life cycle climate impacts of the US concrete pavement network.” Resources, Conservation and Recycling. Volume 72, March 2013, Pages 76-83, 2013.
• Louhghalam A., Akbarian, M., Ulm F-J. “Carbon management of infrastructure performance: Integrated big data analytics and pavement-vehicle-interactions”. Journal of Cleaner Production. Volume 142, Part 2, 20 January 2017, Pages 956-964. 2016
• M. Akabarian, F. Ulm, X. Xu, R. Kirchain, J. Gregory, A. Louhghalam, J. Mack, “Overview of pavement life cycle assessment use phase research at the MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub”, ASCE T&DI International Airfield and Highway Pavements Conference, Chicago, IL, July 21-24, 2019.
• Mack J., Ulm F.-J., Gregory J., Kirchain R., Akbarian M., Swei O., Wildnauer M., “Designing Sustainable Concrete Pavements using the Pavement-ME Mechanistic Empirical Pavement Design and Life Cycle Analysis,” International Conference on Long-Life Concrete Pavement, 2012
• Noshadravan A., Wildnauer M., Gregory J., Kirchain R., “Comparative Pavement Life Cycle Assessment with Parameter Uncertainty,” Transportation Research Part D, 25, Pages 135-138, 2013
• Noshadravan A., Xu X., Gregory J., Kirchain R., “Uncertainty management in comparative life-cycle assessment of pavements”, Proceedings of the 12th International Symposium on Concrete Roads, Prague, Czech Republic, September 23-26, 2014.
• Safari, K., & AzariJafari, H. (2021). Challenges and opportunities for integrating BIM and LCA: Methodological choices and framework development. Sustainable Cities and Society, 67, 102728.
• Santero N., Loijos A., Ochsendorf J., “Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction Opportunities for Concrete Pavements,” Journal of Industrial Ecology, Volume 17, Issue 6, Pages 859–868, 2013
• Xin Xu, Mehdi Akbarian, Jeremy Gregory, Randolph Kirchain, “Role of the use phase and pavement-vehicle interaction in comparative pavement life cycle assessment as a function of context”, Journal of Cleaner Production, 2019.
• Xu X., Noshadravan A., J. Gregory, R. Kirchain, “Scenario analysis of comparative pavement life cycle assessment using a probabilistic approach,” Proceedings of the International Symposium on Pavement LCA, Davis, CA, October 14-16, 2014.
• Xu, X., Gregory J., Kirchain R., “Role of the Use Phase and Pavement-Vehicle Interaction in Comparative Pavement Life Cycle Assessment” Transportation Research Board 94th Annual Meeting. No. 15-4011. 2015.
• Xu, X., Gregory, J., &  Kirchain, R. “Role of the Use Phase and Pavement-Vehicle Interaction in Comparative Pavement Life Cycle Assessment,” Proceedings of the Transportation Research Board 97th Annual Meeting, 2018.
• Xu, X., Wildnauer, M., Gregory, J., & Kirchain, R. “Accounting for Variation in Life Cycle Inventories: The Case of Portland Cement Production in the U.S.”, R.E. Kirchain et al. (Eds), REWAS 2016: Towards Materials Resource Sustainability, Springer AG.

A life cycle cost analysis (LCCA) is an analysis methodology that enables engineers, designers, and decision-makers to better understand the economic impacts of infrastructure decisions over time along with the opportunities that exist to reduce impacts. CSHub pavements LCCA research considers life cycle, context, and future, and also incorporates risk.

News

• Paving ahead (MIT News, April 2019)

Topic Summaries

• Life Cycle Thinking: Pavements (March 2018)
• Measuring the Impact of Competition on Paving Material Prices (November 2017)
• Pavement Life Cycle Cost Assessment: Price Projection Modeling (April 2016)

Research Briefs

• The influence of analysis period on pavement network performance (November 2017)
• Estimating The Impact Of Competition (February 2016)
• Developing a Network-Level Pavement Management Model (November 2015)
• Material-Specific Price Projections: Implementation (September 2014)
• LCCA of Pavements: Scenario Analysis (February 2014)
• Initial Cost Uncertainty in LCCA (May 2013)

Publications

• Guo, F., AzariJafari, H., Gregory, J., Kirchain, R. “Environmental and economic evaluations of treatment strategies for pavement network performance-based planning”, Transportation Research D: Transport and Environment. Volume 99, October 2021, 103016
• M. Akbarian, O. Swei, and J. Gregory, Probabilistic Characterization of Life-Cycle Agency and User Costs: Case Study of Minnesota, Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2639, 2017, pp. 93–101. 2017
• O. Swei, M. Akabarian, J. Gregory, R. Kirchain, J. Mack, “A review of pavement economic studies at the MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub”, ASCE T&DI International Airfield and Highway Pavements Conference, Chicago, IL, July 21-24, 2019.
• Omar, S., Gregory, J., & Kirchain, R. (2018). Does Pavement Degradation Follow a Random Walk with Drift? Evidence from Variance Ratio Tests for Pavement Roughness, Journal of Infrastructure Systems, Vol 24, no.4, 2018.
• Swei O., Gregory J., Kirchain R., Pavement Management Systems: Opportunities to Improve the Current Frameworks Transportation Research Board 95th Annual Meeting, No. 16-2940. 2016.
• Swei, O. Probabilistic Life-Cycle Cost Analysis of Pavements: Drivers of Variation and Implications of Context, Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2523. Pages 47–55. 2016.
• Swei, O., Gregory, J., and Kirchain, R. Probabilistic Approach for Long-Run Price Projections: Case Study of Concrete and Asphalt. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management. 2016.
• Swei, O., Gregory, J., Kirchain, R., Construction cost estimation: A parametric approach for better estimates of expected cost and variation. Transportation Research Part B: Methodological. Volume 101, July 2017, Pages 295–305

Pavement management systems are a form of asset management that provide a framework by which transportation agencies monitor the performance of their pavement networks, set performance targets, and implement strategies to meet those performance targets. CSHub research in this area seeks to improve the methods used to allocate available funding across the needs of the pavement network by developing models to predict the performance of the network and optimize the allocation of funds. This process of performance-based planning enables economically efficient management of pavement networks by optimizing pavement network performance for a given cost.

News

• MIT News: New framework empowers pavement life-cycle decision-making while reducing data collection burden (August 2024)
• The Hill: We’re overhauling our cars in the name of energy efficiency — why not our roads? (January 2024)
• The Hill: Before building sustainably, let’s define ‘sustainability’ (June 2021)
• The Hill: America’s Roads Are Crumbling, But We Can Make Them Sustainable (June 2020)
• MIT News: Improving Pavement Networks by Predicting the Future (February 2020)

Topic Summaries

• Network Asset Management (April 2019)
• Improving America’s Road Infrastructure by Embracing Uncertainty (March 2022)

Research Briefs

• Comparison of Feedforward and Recurrent Neural Networks for Predicting Pavement Roughness (January 2021)
• Improving Pavement Network Conditions Through Competition (October 2020)
• The Role of Pavements in Meeting GHG Reduction Targets (August 2019)
• Influence of Treatment Types on Performance-based Planning (August 2019)
• The influence of incorporating uncertainties and treatment path dependence in performance-based planning analyses (November 2018)
• The influence of analysis period on pavement network performance (November 2017)
• Developing a Network-Level Pavement Management Model (November 2015)

Publications

• Batouli, M., Swei, O., Zhu, J., Gregory, J., & Kirchain, R. (2015). “A Simulation Framework for Network Level Cost Analysis in Infrastructure Systems,” in O’Brien W., Ponticelli, S., (Eds.), Computing in Civil Engineering 2015, ASCE.
• F. Guo, O. Swei, J. Gregory, R. Kirchain, “Sensitivity Analysis of Performance Metrics to Different Parameters in Pavement Management Systems”, the Transportation Research Board 97th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers, Washington, DC, January 7-11, 2018. (PDF)
• Guo, F., Azarijafari, H., Gregory, J., & Kirchain, R. (2021). Environmental and economic evaluations of treatment strategies for pavement network performance-based planning. Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment, 99, 103016.
• Guo, F., AzariJafari, H., Gregory, J., Kirchain, R. “Environmental and economic evaluations of treatment strategies for pavement network performance-based planning”, Transportation Research D: Transport and Environment. Volume 99, October 2021, 103016
• Guo, F., Gregory, J., Kirchain, R. “Incorporating cost uncertainty and path dependence into treatment selection for pavement networks,” Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies,
  Volume 110, Jan 2020, Pages 40-55,
• Guo, Fengdi, et al. “Environmental and economic evaluations of treatment strategies for pavement network performance-based planning.” Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment 99 (2021): 103016.
• Guo. F., Xingang, Z., Gregory, J., Kirchain, R. (2021) “A weighted multi-output neural network model for the prediction of rigid pavement deterioration,” International Journal of Pavement Engineering,
• Swei O., Gregory J., Kirchain R., “Does Pavement Degradation Follow a Random Walk with Drift? Evidence from Variance Ratio Tests for Pavement Roughness”, Journal of Infrastructure Systems, Vol. 24, No. 4, 2018.
• Swei O., Gregory J., Kirchain R., “Embedding Flexibility within Pavement Management: Technique to Improve Expected Performance of Roadway Systems”, Journal of Infrastructure Systems, Vol. 25, No. 3, 2019.
• Swei O., Gregory J., Kirchain R., “Pavement Management Systems: Opportunities to Improve the Current Frameworks” Transportation Research Board 95th Annual Meeting, No. 16-2940. 2016.

Pavement vehicle interaction (PVI) is a concept that looks at the interaction between a vehicle’s tires and the roadway surface on which it is driving. It is also known as rolling resistance. Three factors relating to a road’s surface condition and structural properties contribute significantly to PVI: roughness, which refers to how bumpy or smooth a road is; texture, the abrasiveness of the road surface; and deflection, the bending of a pavement under the weight of a vehicle. Traffic patterns and temperature are influential factors as well.

PVI leads to excess fuel consumption (EFC), which is wasted fuel consumption beyond what is required to move a vehicle. EFC contributes to smog and greenhouse gas emissions and impacts drivers, states, and municipalities financially.

CSHub research has led to models that quantify excess fuel consumption due to PVI for pavement segments and pavement networks.

News

• The Hill: We’re overhauling our cars in the name of energy efficiency — why not our roads? (January 2024)
• Stiffer Roads Could Improve Truck Fuel Efficiency (MIT News, July 2020)
• Reading the heartbeat of the road (MIT News, February 2019)
• Well-maintained roadways improve fuel efficiency (MIT News, February 2016)
• Data-driven approach to pavement management lowers emissions (MIT News, July 2016)
• Civil engineers find savings where the rubber meets the road (MIT News, May 2012)

Topic Summaries

• Pavement Vehicle Interaction Information Sheet (July 2018)
• Lowering Vehicle Fuel Consumption and Emissions Through Better Pavement Design and Maintenance(October 2016)

Research Briefs

• Assessing Road Quality Using Crowdsourced Smartphone Measurements (July 2020)
• Analyzing Pavement-Vehicle Interaction through Bench-Top Experiments (August 2015)
• The Impact of Traffic Jams on PVI Estimates (May 2015)
• Mapping of Excess Fuel Consumption (December 2014)
• PVI Mechanistic Model Gen II (December 2013)
• PVI Mechanistic Model Refined (April 2013)
• Deterioration Induced Roughness in the US Network (February 2013)
• Potential Roadway Network Savings and PVI (July 2012)
• Network, Pavements and Fuel Consumption (April 2012)
• Smoothness Matters, But… (January 2012)
• When the Rubber Hits the Road (June 2011)

Publications

• Akbarian M., Moeini-Ardakani S.S., Ulm F.-J., Nazzal M., “Mechanistic Approach to Pavement-Vehicle Interaction and Its Impact on Life-Cycle Assessment,” Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2306, Pages 171-179, 2012
• Akbarian, M., Kirchain, R., Gregory, J., & Ulm, FJ. “Probabilistic Evaluation of Pavement-Induced Excess Fuel Consumption Given Data Unavailability and Future Uncertainty,” Proceedings of Transportation Research Board 97th Annual Meeting, 2018.
• Akbarian, Mehdi, et al. “Network Analysis of Virginia’s Interstate Pavement-Vehicle Interactions: Mapping of Roughness and Deflection-Induced Excess Fuel Consumption.” Transportation Research Board 94th Annual Meeting. No. 15-5752. 2015.
• AzariJafari, H., Gregory, J., Kirchain, R. “Potential Contribution of Deflection-Induced Fuel Consumption to U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions”, Transportation Research Record, 2020.
• Booshehrian A., Louhghalam A., Khazanovich L., Ulm F-J. “Assessment of Pavement Deflection-Caused Fuel Consumption via FWD Data,” Transportation Research Board 95th Annual Meeting, No. 16-6246. 2016.
• Coleri, E., Harvey, J., Zaabar, I., Louhghalam, A., Chatti, K., “Model Development, Field Section Characterization, and Model Comparison for Excess Vehicle Fuel Use due to Pavement Structural Response” No. 16-6191. 2016.
• F. Giustozzi, F. Ponzoni, A. Louhghalam, R. Kirchain & J. Gregory (2018) “Sensitivity analysis of a deflection-induced pavement–vehicle interaction model, Road Materials and Pavement Design,” DOI: 10.1080/14680629.2018.1479288
• Louhghalam A., Akbarian M., Ulm F.-J., Pavement Infrastructures Footprint: The Impact of Pavement Properties on Vehicle Fuel Consumption, Euro-C 2014 conference: Computational Modeling of Concrete and Concrete Structures, 2014
• Louhghalam A., Akbarian M., Ulm, F-J. “Scaling Relationships of Dissipation-Induced Pavement-Vehicle Interactions” Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board (2014), Issue 2457, Pages 95-104.
• Louhghalam A., Akbarian, M., Ulm F-J. “Carbon management of infrastructure performance: Integrated big data analytics and pavement-vehicle-interactions.” Journal of Cleaner Production. Volume 142, Part 2, 20 January 2017, Pages 956-964. 2016
• Louhghalam A., Akbarian, M., Ulm, Franz-Josef. “Flugge’s Conjecture: Dissipation- versus Deflection-Induced Pavement-Vehicle Interactions” Journal of Engineering Mechanics, Volume 140, Issue 8,  Article Number 04014053, August 2014
• Louhghalam, A., Akbarian M., and Ulm F-J. “Roughness-induced pavement-vehicle interactions: Key parameters and impact on vehicle fuel consumption.” Transportation Research Board 94th Annual Meeting. No. 15-2429. 2015.
• Louhghalam, A., Mazdak T., and Ulm F-J. “Roughness-Induced Vehicle Energy Dissipation: Statistical Analysis and Scaling.” Journal of Engineering Mechanics, 2015: 04015046.
• M. Akabarian, F. Ulm, X. Xu, R. Kirchain, J. Gregory, A. Louhghalam, J. Mack, “Overview of pavement life cycle assessment use phase research at the MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub,” ASCE T&DI International Airfield and Highway Pavements Conference, Chicago, IL, July 21-24, 2019.
• Mack, J., Akbarian, M., Ulm, F-J. Louhghalam A. “Overview of Pavement Vehicle Interaction Related Research at the MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub.” Presented at the 13^th International Symposium on Concrete Pavements, Berlin, Germany, 2018.
• Santero N., Loijos A., Ochsendorf J., “Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction Opportunities for Concrete Pavements,” Journal of Industrial Ecology, Volume 17, Issue 6, Pages 859–868, 2013
• Xin Xu, Mehdi Akbarian, Jeremy Gregory, Randolph Kirchain, “Role of the use phase and pavement-vehicle interaction in comparative pavement life cycle assessment as a function of context,” Journal of Cleaner Production, 2019.
• Xu, X., Akbarian, M., Gregory, J., Kirchain, R. “Role of the use phase and pavement-vehicle interaction in comparative pavement life cycle assessment as a function of context,” Journal of Cleaner Production, Volume 230, 2019, Pages 1156-1164

Albedo is a measure of a surface’s reflectivity — surfaces with low albedo reflect less light than do surfaces with high albedo. This has several implications for combatting phenomena such as the urban heat island effect. “Cool pavements,” those high in albedo, reflect more sunlight into the atmosphere, increasing ambient temperatures less than dark pavements.

News

• What can cities and towns do to lower extreme temperatures? (Ask MIT Climate, July 2023)
• Cool pavement is like sunscreen for streets. Can it take the heat out of concrete cities? (The Globe and Mail, July 2023)
• Extreme heat kills inequitably: Reflective pavements can help, but city action is required. (The Hill, August 2022)
• Q&A: Randolph Kirchain on how cool pavements can mitigate climate change. (MIT News, March 2022)
• Solutions to extreme heat can be found in our streets. (Boston Globe, April 2021)
• Cool pavements research builds as temperatures rise (Smart Cities Dive, September 2021)
• Could ‘cool pavements’ help in the battle against climate change? (Yahoo News, August 2021)

Topic Summaries

• Mitigating Climate Change with Reflective Pavements (November 2020)
• Urban Heat Islands (June 2019)
• Albedo Information Sheet (April 2019)

Research Briefs

• A High-Level Analysis of Context-Dependent Albedo Effects (May 2015)
• Quantifying Climate Impacts of Surface Albedo (July 2015)
• The Impact of Changes to Surface Albedo on Radiative Forcing (January 2016)
• Quantifying the impact of pavement reflectivity on radiative forcing and building energy demand in neighborhoods (March 2017)
• Climate Change Mitigation Potential of Pavement Albedo (January 2018)

Publications

• AzariJafari, Hessam, et al. “Urban-scale evaluation of cool pavement impacts on the urban heat Island effect and climate change.” Environmental Science & Technology 55.17 (2021): 11501-11510.
• Gregory, J., AzariJafari, H., Vahidi, E., Guo, F., Ulm, F.J., Kirchain, R. “The role of concrete in life cycle greenhouse gas emissions of US buildings and pavements.” PNAS. September 14, 2021 118 (37).

The Alkali-Silica Reaction (ASR) causes expansion and cracking in concrete. This can result in structural problems in concrete infrastructure that can limit the infrastructure’s service life and also generate high maintenance costs. CSHub research seeks to better understand the reaction and its mechanisms, which is key to determining solutions that will prolong the life of concrete infrastructure.

News

• Investigating a Big Dam Concrete Problem (MIT News, September 2017)

Research Briefs

• Investigating the Mechanisms of ASR Using Atomistic Methods (July 2020)
• Simulating the Formation of ASR Gels (April 2019)
• Atomistic Modeling of ASR Gel (August 2017)
• Bottom-up Modeling of ASR in Concrete (March 2016)

Publications

• Dufresne, A., Arayro, J., Zhou, T., Ioannidou, I., Ulm, F.J., Pellenq, R., & Béland L. K. Atomistic and mesoscale simulation of sodium and potassium adsorption in cement paste, The Journal of Chemical Physics, Volume 149, 70, 2018.
• Dupuis, R; Béland, L.K. & Pellenq, R. Molecular simulation of silica gels: Formation, dilution, and drying, Physical Review Materials, Volume 3, 7, 2019.

The CSHub has long investigated multifunctional concrete, and has uncovered a way to store energy in a mixture of carbon black, cement, and water. The technology has potential applications towards bulk energy storage, on-road EV charging, self-heating pavements, energy-autarkic structures, and more.

News

• MIT News: MIT conductive concrete consortium cements five-year research agreement with Japanese industry (May 2024)
• MIT engineers create an energy-storing supercapacitor from ancient materials (MIT News, July 2023)
• Is cement the solution to storing renewable energy? Engineers at MIT think so. (Boston Globe, August 2023)
• Energy-storing concrete could form foundations for solar-powered homes (NewScientist, July 2023)

Research Briefs

• Next-generation concrete: Combining loadbearing and energy storage solutions (September 2024)
• Early-Stage Building Lifecycle Optimization of Cost & Carbon Impact (April 2021)

Publications

• Chanut, N., Stefaniuk, D., Weaver, J. C., Zhu, Y., Shao-Horn, Y., Masic, A., & Ulm, F. J. (2023). Carbon–cement supercapacitors as a scalable bulk energy storage solution. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120(32), e2304318120.
• Soliman, N. A., Chanut, N., Deman, V., Lallas, Z., & Ulm, F. J. (2020). Electric energy dissipation and electric tortuosity in electron conductive cement-based materials. Physical Review Materials, 4(12), 125401.

Creep, the gradual structural deformation in concrete under a load, it is known to impact on the durability of concrete structures. CSHub researchers are working to better understand what causes creep starting at the nanoscale.

News

• Riddle of cement’s structure is finally solved (February 2016)

Research Briefs

• Toward Understanding Cement Paste Creep (January 2017)
• Holding It Together – C-S-H Cohesion (December 2011)
• Predicting CSH Aging (March 2013)

Publications

• Bauchy, M., Masoero, E., Ulm, F.-J., & Pellenq, R. Creep of Bulk C-S-H: Insights from Molecular Dynamics Simulations, in C. Hellmich, B. Pichler, J. Kollegger (eds.), CONCREEP 10: Mechanics and Physics of Creep, Shrinkage, and Durability of Concrete and Concrete Structures, ASCE, 2015
• Cao, P., Short, M.P., and Yip, S. “Understanding the mechanisms of amorphous creep through molecular simulation,” PNAS, December 26, 2017, vol. 114 no. 52.
• Haist, M., Divoux, T., Krakowiak, K. J., Skibsted, J., Pellenq, R. J. M., Müller, H. S., & Ulm, F. J. (2021). Creep in reactive colloidal gels: A nanomechanical study of cement hydrates. Physical Review Research, 3(4), 043127.
• Masoero E., Bauchy, M., Del Gado, E., Manzano, H., Pellenq, R. M, Ulm, F.-J., & Yip, S. Kinetic Simulations of Cement Creep: Mechanisms from Shear Deformations of Glasses, C. Hellmich, B. Pichler, J. Kollegger (eds.), CONCREEP 10 : Mechanics and Physics of Creep, Shrinkage, and Durability of Concrete and Concrete Structures, ASCE, 2015
• Short, M. and Yip, S., “Multiscale materials modelling at the mesoscale,” Nature Materials, Volume 12, September 2013.
• Vandamme, M.; Ulm, F.J., “Nanoindentation investigation of creep properties of calcium silicate hydrates,” Cement and Concrete Research, Volume 52, Pages 38-52, 2013

Flooding is both one of the most frequent and one of the most devastating natural disasters. A majority of cities analyzed in a UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs report were found to be highly vulnerable to flood-related mortality (76%) and/or economic losses (72%). Even cities with low levels of flood exposure must take the hazard seriously: 26.5% of cities studied had low flood exposure but high flood-related mortality risk, 24.0% of cities studied had low flood exposure yet high flood-related economic risk. The CSHub is investigating novel flood modeling methodologies to better capture risk to urban areas.

News

• Studying floods to better predict their dangers (MIT News, October 2022)

Research Briefs

• Accessible Multi-scale Flood Modeling via the 3D Lattice Approach (November 2023)
• Assessing Urban Flood Risks: The Critical Role of Dynamic Modeling (November 2022)

In hazard-prone areas, hazard-induced maintenance costs can be significant over the lifetime of a building. In fact, the costs of hazard-related repairs can exceed the initial building cost. Our team has developed a building life cycle cost analysis (LCCA) approach that incorporates operational costs associated with energy consumption and repairs due to damage from hazards. Our case studies have demonstrated that investing in more hazard-resistant residential construction in certain locations is very cost-effective.

News

• Hurricane-resistant construction may be undervalued by billions of dollars annually (July 2022)
• MIT Climate Portal: Climate-Resilient Infrastructure (September 2021)
• MIT News: Mitigating hazards with vulnerability in mind (September 2021)
• The Hill: Climate Resilience is the New Sustainability (May 2021)
• Building to Better Weather the Storm (MIT News, June 2017)
• Build disaster-proof homes before storms strike, not afterward (The Conversation, August 2016)
• New approach calculates benefits of building hazard-resistant structures (MIT News, December 2016)

Topic Summaries

• Fact Sheet: Resilient Buildings (May 2020)
• Topic Summary: City Texture and Urban Resilience (March 2020)
• Information Sheet: Building Resilience (May 2018)
• Building Life Cycle Cost Analysis: Life Cycle Costs of Hazard Resistant Buildings (February 2017)

Research Briefs

• Kinetic temperature of structures: a new approach for building resilience assessment (April 2023)
• Measuring Cost Burden of Hurricane Repairs on Socially Vulnerable Households (October 2022)
• Molecular Dynamics-based Resilience Assessment of Structures (May 2021)
• Incorporating Neighborhood Texture Into Hurricane Loss Estimation (March 2021)
• Precipitation Flooding in Urban Environments (March 2021)
• Molecular Dynamics-based Resilience Assessment of Structures (July 2020)
• Generating Building-specific Fragility Curves (May 2019)
• Validation of Molecular Dynamics-Based Structural Damage Models (March 2019)
• Creating Customized Fragility Curves for Resilient Building (November 2018)
• Resilience Assessment of Structures Using Molecular Dynamics (June 2018)
• Prioritizing Resilient Retrofits (February 2018)
• Planning More Resilient Cities (March 2017)
• A Break-Even Hazard Mitigation Metric (July 2016)
• Quantifying Hazard Life-Cycle Cost (August 2014)
• Hazard Mitigation Assessment Methodologies (August 2013)
• Quantitative Assessment of Resilience in Residential Building Envelope Systems (March 2013)

Publications

• Keremides, Konstantinos; Qomi, Mohammad Javad Abdolhosseini; Pellenq, Roland J. M.; and Ulm, Franz-Josef. “Potential-of-Mean-Force Approach for Molecular Dynamics–Based Resilience Assessment of Structures” Journal of Engineering Mechanics, Volume 144, Issue 8 (2018)
• Keremidis, K., Vartziotis, T., & Ulm, F. J. (2023). Kinetic Temperature of Structures for Resilience, Instability, and Failure Analysis of Building Systems. Journal of Engineering Mechanics, 149(2), 04022110.
• Manav, Ipek Bensu, et al. “Texture-Informed Approach for Hurricane Loss Estimation: How Discounting Neighborhood Texture Leads to Undervaluing Wind Mitigation.” Natural Hazards Review 23.4 (2022): 05022006.
• Noori, M., Miller, R., Kirchain, R., Gregory, J., “How much should be invested in hazard mitigation? Development of a streamlined hazard mitigation cost assessment framework,” International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction (2018)
• Noshadravan, A.; Miller, T.R.; and Gregory, J. “A Lifecycle Cost Analysis of Residential Buildings Including Natural Hazard Risk” Journal of Construction and Engineering Management (2007).

Life cycle assessment (LCA) considers all life-cycle phases from initial construction to demolition. For pavements, this includes the operation, maintenance, and end of life phases, and factors such as traffic delay, lighting demand, and future maintenance. CSHub models quantify environmental impacts across a pavement’s life cycle from manufacturing to disposal and offer detailed analyses of the use phase.

News

• MIT News: New framework empowers pavement life-cycle decision-making while reducing data collection burden (August 2024)
• Real Clear Energy: ‘Nutrition Facts’ for Emissions: Why EPA Must Account for the Whole Life Cycle in Low Carbon Labels (October 2024)
• The Hill: We’re overhauling our cars in the name of energy efficiency — why not our roads? (January 2024)
• MIT News: Study: Carbon-neutral pavements are possible by 2050, but rapid policy and industry action are needed (February 2023)
• MIT News: Concrete’s role in reducing building and pavement emissions (September 2021)
• Yahoo News: Could ‘cool pavements’ help in the battle against climate change? (August 2021)
• MIT News: Countering climate change with cool pavements (August 2021)
• The Boston Globe: Solutions to Extreme Heat Can be Found in Our Streets (August 2021)
• The Conversation: Lighter Pavement Really Does Cool Cities (June 2021)

Topic Summaries

• Mitigating Climate Change with Reflective Pavements (November 2020)
• Context Dependent Pavement Life Cycle Analysis (July 2019)
• Life Cycle Thinking: Pavements (March 2018)

Research Briefs

• Solutions for Net-zero Carbon Concrete in U.S. Pavements (July 2021)
• Life Cycle Carbon Uptake of the United States Pavement Network (January 2021)
• Impact of Use Phase in Pavement Life Cycle Assessment: A Case Study of Alternative Designs in Different Contexts (April 2014)
• Key Drivers of Uncertainty in Pavement LCA (November 2012)
• Comparative Pavement LCAs With Uncertainty (June 2012)
• Network, Pavements and Fuel Consumption (April 2012)
• Adopting a Life Cycle Perspective (April 2011)
• Designing for Sustainable Pavements (March 2011)

Publications

• Akbarian M., Moeini-Ardakani S.S., Ulm F.-J., Nazzal M., “Mechanistic Approach to Pavement-Vehicle Interaction and Its Impact on Life-Cycle Assessment,” Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2306, Pages 171-179, 2012
• AzariJafari, H., Guest, G., Kirchain, R., Gregory, J., & Amor, B. (2021). Towards comparable environmental product declarations of construction materials: Insights from a probabilistic comparative LCA approach. Building and Environment, 190, 107542.
• AzariJafari, H., Guest, G., Kirchain, R., Gregory, J., Amor, B. “Towards comparable environmental product declarations of construction materials: Insights from a probabilistic comparative LCA approach”, Building and Environment, 190: 2021, 107542. 2021.
• AzariJafari, H., Guo, F., Gregory, J., & Kirchain, R. (2023). Solutions to achieve carbon-neutral mixtures for the US pavement network. The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, 1-14.
• AzariJafari, H., Rangelov, M., Gregory, J., & Kirchain, R. (2023). Suitability of EPDs for Supporting Life Cycle and Comparative Analysis of Concrete Mixtures. Environmental Science & Technology, 57(19), 7321-7327
• Gregory, J., AzariJafari, H., Vahidi, E., Guo, F., Ulm, F.J., Kirchain, R. “The role of concrete in life cycle greenhouse gas emissions of US buildings and pavements.” PNAS. September 14, 2021 118 (37).
• Gregory, J., Noshadravan, A., Olivetti, E.A., Kirchain, R., “A Methodology for Robust Comparative Life Cycle Assessments Incorporating Uncertainty.” Environmental Science & Technology, Vol. 50: Issue. 12: Pages. 6397-6405.
• Gregory, Jeremy, et al. “The role of concrete in life cycle greenhouse gas emissions of US buildings and pavements.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 118.37 (2021): e2021936118.
• Guo, F., AzariJafari, H., Gregory, J., Kirchain, R. “Environmental and economic evaluations of treatment strategies for pavement network performance-based planning”, Transportation Research D: Transport and Environment. Volume 99, October 2021, 103016
• Guo, Fengdi, et al. “A weighted multi-output neural network model for the prediction of rigid pavement deterioration.” International Journal of Pavement Engineering 23.8 (2022): 2631-2643.
• Huang, Y., Wolfram, P., Miller, R., Azarijafari, H., Guo, F., An, K., … & Wang, C. (2022). Mitigating life cycle GHG emissions of roads to be built through 2030: Case study of a Chinese province. Journal of Environmental Management,
• J. Gregory, A. Noshadravan, O. Swei, X. Xu, R. Kirchain, “The importance of incorporating uncertainty into pavement life cycle cost and environmental impact analyses,” Proceedings of the Pavement Life-Cycle Assessment Symposium 2017, Champaign, IL, April 12-13, 2017
• J. Mack, J. Gregory, R. Kirchain, “Accounting for Rehabilitation Activity Uncertainty in a Pavement Life Cycle Assessment using Probability and Decision Tree Analysis,” Proceedings of the International Concrete Sustainability Conference, Miami, FL, May 11-13, 2015.
• J. Mack, X. Xu, J. Gregory, R. Kirchain, “Developing robust rehabilitation scenario profiles for life cycle assessment using decision tree analysis,” Proceedings of the International Symposium on Pavement LCA, Davis, CA, October 14-16, 2014.
• Kirchain, R., Gregory, J., Olivetti, E. “Environmental life-cycle assessment.” Nature Materials, 16 693–697 (2017)
• Loijos A., Akbarian M., Sahni S., Ochsendorf J., “Sensitivity Analysis of the Life Cycle Environmental Performance of Asphalt and Concrete Pavements,” Concrete Sustainability Conference, 2010
• Loijos A., Santero N., Ochsendorf J. “Life cycle climate impacts of the US concrete pavement network.” Resources, Conservation and Recycling. Volume 72, March 2013, Pages 76-83, 2013.
• Louhghalam A., Akbarian, M., Ulm F-J. “Carbon management of infrastructure performance: Integrated big data analytics and pavement-vehicle-interactions”. Journal of Cleaner Production. Volume 142, Part 2, 20 January 2017, Pages 956-964. 2016
• M. Akabarian, F. Ulm, X. Xu, R. Kirchain, J. Gregory, A. Louhghalam, J. Mack, “Overview of pavement life cycle assessment use phase research at the MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub”, ASCE T&DI International Airfield and Highway Pavements Conference, Chicago, IL, July 21-24, 2019.
• Mack J., Ulm F.-J., Gregory J., Kirchain R., Akbarian M., Swei O., Wildnauer M., “Designing Sustainable Concrete Pavements using the Pavement-ME Mechanistic Empirical Pavement Design and Life Cycle Analysis,” International Conference on Long-Life Concrete Pavement, 2012
• Noshadravan A., Wildnauer M., Gregory J., Kirchain R., “Comparative Pavement Life Cycle Assessment with Parameter Uncertainty,” Transportation Research Part D, 25, Pages 135-138, 2013
• Noshadravan A., Xu X., Gregory J., Kirchain R., “Uncertainty management in comparative life-cycle assessment of pavements”, Proceedings of the 12th International Symposium on Concrete Roads, Prague, Czech Republic, September 23-26, 2014.
• Safari, K., & AzariJafari, H. (2021). Challenges and opportunities for integrating BIM and LCA: Methodological choices and framework development. Sustainable Cities and Society, 67, 102728.
• Santero N., Loijos A., Ochsendorf J., “Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction Opportunities for Concrete Pavements,” Journal of Industrial Ecology, Volume 17, Issue 6, Pages 859–868, 2013
• Xin Xu, Mehdi Akbarian, Jeremy Gregory, Randolph Kirchain, “Role of the use phase and pavement-vehicle interaction in comparative pavement life cycle assessment as a function of context”, Journal of Cleaner Production, 2019.
• Xu X., Noshadravan A., J. Gregory, R. Kirchain, “Scenario analysis of comparative pavement life cycle assessment using a probabilistic approach,” Proceedings of the International Symposium on Pavement LCA, Davis, CA, October 14-16, 2014.
• Xu, X., Gregory J., Kirchain R., “Role of the Use Phase and Pavement-Vehicle Interaction in Comparative Pavement Life Cycle Assessment” Transportation Research Board 94th Annual Meeting. No. 15-4011. 2015.
• Xu, X., Gregory, J., &  Kirchain, R. “Role of the Use Phase and Pavement-Vehicle Interaction in Comparative Pavement Life Cycle Assessment,” Proceedings of the Transportation Research Board 97th Annual Meeting, 2018.
• Xu, X., Wildnauer, M., Gregory, J., & Kirchain, R. “Accounting for Variation in Life Cycle Inventories: The Case of Portland Cement Production in the U.S.”, R.E. Kirchain et al. (Eds), REWAS 2016: Towards Materials Resource Sustainability, Springer AG.

A life cycle cost analysis (LCCA) is an analysis methodology that enables engineers, designers, and decision-makers to better understand the economic impacts of infrastructure decisions over time along with the opportunities that exist to reduce impacts. CSHub pavements LCCA research considers life cycle, context, and future, and also incorporates risk.

News

• Paving ahead (MIT News, April 2019)

Topic Summaries

• Life Cycle Thinking: Pavements (March 2018)
• Measuring the Impact of Competition on Paving Material Prices (November 2017)
• Pavement Life Cycle Cost Assessment: Price Projection Modeling (April 2016)

Research Briefs

• The influence of analysis period on pavement network performance (November 2017)
• Estimating The Impact Of Competition (February 2016)
• Developing a Network-Level Pavement Management Model (November 2015)
• Material-Specific Price Projections: Implementation (September 2014)
• LCCA of Pavements: Scenario Analysis (February 2014)
• Initial Cost Uncertainty in LCCA (May 2013)

Publications

• Guo, F., AzariJafari, H., Gregory, J., Kirchain, R. “Environmental and economic evaluations of treatment strategies for pavement network performance-based planning”, Transportation Research D: Transport and Environment. Volume 99, October 2021, 103016
• M. Akbarian, O. Swei, and J. Gregory, Probabilistic Characterization of Life-Cycle Agency and User Costs: Case Study of Minnesota, Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2639, 2017, pp. 93–101. 2017
• O. Swei, M. Akabarian, J. Gregory, R. Kirchain, J. Mack, “A review of pavement economic studies at the MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub”, ASCE T&DI International Airfield and Highway Pavements Conference, Chicago, IL, July 21-24, 2019.
• Omar, S., Gregory, J., & Kirchain, R. (2018). Does Pavement Degradation Follow a Random Walk with Drift? Evidence from Variance Ratio Tests for Pavement Roughness, Journal of Infrastructure Systems, Vol 24, no.4, 2018.
• Swei O., Gregory J., Kirchain R., Pavement Management Systems: Opportunities to Improve the Current Frameworks Transportation Research Board 95th Annual Meeting, No. 16-2940. 2016.
• Swei, O. Probabilistic Life-Cycle Cost Analysis of Pavements: Drivers of Variation and Implications of Context, Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2523. Pages 47–55. 2016.
• Swei, O., Gregory, J., and Kirchain, R. Probabilistic Approach for Long-Run Price Projections: Case Study of Concrete and Asphalt. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management. 2016.
• Swei, O., Gregory, J., Kirchain, R., Construction cost estimation: A parametric approach for better estimates of expected cost and variation. Transportation Research Part B: Methodological. Volume 101, July 2017, Pages 295–305

Increasing urbanization means that policies enacted in cities are critical to mitigating the effects of climate change, urban heat island (UHI) effects, and natural or man-made disasters. CSHub research analyzes the economic, environmental, and hazard resistance impacts of building configuration and design in urban environments. This includes studying the UHI effect, which is defined as a temperature difference between urban areas and their rural surroundings where the city temperature is higher, and investigating ways to make cities more energy-efficient.

• What can cities and towns do to lower extreme temperatures? (Ask MIT Climate, July 2023)
• Cool pavement is like sunscreen for streets. Can it take the heat out of concrete cities? (The Globe and Mail, July 2023)
• Yahoo News: Could ‘cool pavements’ help in the battle against climate change? (August 2021)
• MIT News: Countering climate change with cool pavements (August 2021)
• The Boston Globe: Solutions to Extreme Heat Can be Found in Our Streets (August 2021)
• The Conversation: Lighter Pavement Really Does Cool Cities (June 2021)
• MIT Climate: Urban Heat Islands (April 2021)
• MIT News: Urban heat island effects depend on a city’s layout (MIT News, February 2018)
• Forbes: Could math hold the key to more energy-efficient cities? (September 2016)
• MIT News: How to make cities more energy efficient (MIT News, April 2016)
• Boston Globe: What ‘urban physics’ could tell us about how cities work (July 2014)

Topic Summaries

• Mitigating Climate Change with Reflective Pavements (November 2020)
• Urban Energy Consumption (March 2019)

Research Briefs

• Geospatial data enables the accurate prediction of radiative heat transfer (November 2017)
• Quantifying the Impact of Pavement Reflectivity on Radiative Forcing and Building Energy Demand in Neighborhoods (March 2017)
• City Geometry and Urban Heat Island (November 2015)
• Urban Physics: City Texture Matters (October 2014)
• Streamlined Energy Modeling of Residential Buildings (June 2014)

Publications

• Qomi, Mohammad Javad Abdolhosseini; Noshadravan, A.; Sobstyl, J.; Toole, J.; Ferreira, J.; Pellenq, RJM, Ulm, Franz-Josef; Gonzalez, M. “Data analytics for simplifying thermal efficiency planning in cities” Journal of the Royal Society Interface, April 2016
• Sobstyl, J.M., Emig, T., Abdolhosseini Qomi, M.J., Ulm, F.-J., and Pellenq R. J.-M., “Role of City Texture in Urban Heat Islands at Night Time.” Physical Review Letters, February 2018

There are many factors that must be considered before evaluating claims that one or another building type or product offers a better environmental return. To understand the full environmental impact of a structure over decades of use, all phases, starting before construction and continuing through demolition, must be considered. Life cycle assessment (LCA) seeks to quantify the environmentalimpacts over the infrastructure life cycle by identifying the costs during each phase.

LCA can be used to obtain credits in certification systems like LEED, but traditional LCA methods can be time, resource, and data-intensive. For complex systems like residential buildings, these demands can lead to delayed assessments with evaluations carried out after important design decisions have already been made, reducing their effectiveness. CSHub researchers have developed a streamlined approach to LCA that requires significantly less time and data, which can reduce expense as well as uncertainty and allow assessments to be conducted earlier in the building design process when decisions can have the greatest impact.

News

• Real Clear Energy: ‘Nutrition Facts’ for Emissions: Why EPA Must Account for the Whole Life Cycle in Low Carbon Labels (October 2024)
• The Hill: EPA must prioritize life-cycle emissions in building materials policy (June 2023)
• MIT News: Concrete’s role in reducing building and pavement emissions (September 2021)
• MIT News: Predicting building emissions across the US (September 2021)

Topic Summaries

• Building Life Cycle Assessment: Quantifying Building Life Cycle Environmental Impacts
• A Primer on Building Environmental Product Declarations and Life Cycle Assessment
• Leveraging streamlined building life cycle assessment and machine learning to determine critical and flexible building design parameters

Research Briefs

• Getting scope 3 right: how building life cycle analysis enables more complete greenhouse gas accounting for materials producers (May 2024)
• Early-Stage Building Lifecycle Optimization of Cost & Carbon Impact (April 2021)
• Mitigation Solutions for GHG Emissions in New Construction (August 2020)
• Affordability of Passive Houses and Zero-Energy Buildings (May 2020)
• Optimizing Building Life Cycle Environmental Impact and Cost (February 2020)
• Meeting Greenhouse Gas Reduction Targets in the Buildings Sector (July 2019)
• Concrete Building Design Optimization for Reduced Life-Cycle Impacts (April 2018)
• Streamlined Life Cycle Assessment of Buildings (February 2016)
• Streamlined Embodied LCA of Residential Buildings (June 2015)
• Streamlining Residential Building Energy Models (January 2015)
• Urban Physics: City Texture Matters (October 2014)
• Streamlined Energy Modeling of Residential Buildings (June 2014)

Whitepapers

• Reducing Carbon Emissions in the Built Environment: A Case Study in 3D Printed Homes (March 2024)

Publications

• AzariJafari, H., Guest, G., Kirchain, R., Gregory, J., & Amor, B. (2021). Towards comparable environmental product declarations of construction materials: Insights from a probabilistic comparative LCA approach. Building and Environment, 190, 107542.
• Gregory, J., AzariJafari, H., Vahidi, E., Guo, F., Ulm, F.J., Kirchain, R. “The role of concrete in life cycle greenhouse gas emissions of US buildings and pavements.”PNAS. September 14, 2021 118 (37).
• Gregory, Jeremy, et al. “The role of concrete in life cycle greenhouse gas emissions of US buildings and pavements.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 118.37 (2021): e2021936118.
• Hester, J., Gregory, J., Kirchain, R. “Actionable insights with less data: guiding early building design decisions with streamlined probabilistic life cycle assessment“The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment (2018).
• Hester, J., Gregory, J., Kirchain, R. “Sequential early-design guidance for residential single-family buildings using a probabilistic metamodel of energy consumption.” Energy and Buildings, Volume 134, 1 January 2017, Pages 202-211
• Hester, J., Gregory, J., Ulm, F.J., Kirchain, R. “Building design-space exploration through quasi-optimization of life cycle impacts and costs” Building and Environment, Volume 144, 15 October 2018, Pages 34-44.
• Hossein, A. H., AzariJafari, H., & Khoshnazar, R. (2022). The role of performance metrics in comparative LCA of concrete mixtures incorporating solid wastes: A critical review and guideline proposal. Waste Management, 140, 40-54.
• Keremidis, K., Vartziotis, T., & Ulm, F. J. (2023). Kinetic Temperature of Structures for Resilience, Instability, and Failure Analysis of Building Systems. Journal of Engineering Mechanics, 149(2), 04022110.
• Kirchain, R., Gregory, J., Olivetti, E. “Environmental life-cycle assessment.” Nature Materials, 16 693–697 (2017)
• Manav, Ipek Bensu, et al. “Texture-Informed Approach for Hurricane Loss Estimation: How Discounting Neighborhood Texture Leads to Undervaluing Wind Mitigation.” Natural Hazards Review 23.4 (2022): 05022006.
• Rodrigues, C., Kirchain, R., Freire, F., Gregory, J. “Streamlined environmental and cost life-cycle approach for building thermal retrofits: A case of residential buildings in South European climates” Journal of Cleaner Production, Volume 172, 20 January 2018, Pages 2625-2635 (2018).
• Tecchio, P. , Gregory, J. , Olivetti, E. , Ghattas, R. and Kirchain, R. (2019), “Streamlining the Life Cycle Assessment of Buildings by Structured Under‐Specification and Probabilistic Triage” Journal of Industrial Ecology, 23: 268-279.
• Tecchio, P., Gregory, J., Ghattas, R., and Kirchain, R. “Structured Under-Specification of Life Cycle Impact Assessment Data for Building Assemblies” Journal of Industrial Ecology (2018).
• Tecchio, P., Gregory, J., Olivetti, E., Ghattas, R., and Kirchain, R. “Streamlining the Life Cycle Assessment of Buildings by Structured Under-Specification and Probabilistic Triage” Journal of Industrial Ecology (2018).
• Vahidi, E., Kirchain, R., Burek, J., & Gregory, J. (2021). Regional variation of greenhouse gas mitigation strategies for the United States building sector. Applied Energy, 302, 117527.
• Vahidi, E., Kirchain, R., Burek, J., Gregory, J. “Regional variation of greenhouse gas mitigation strategies for the United States building sector.” Applied Energy. Volume 30, 2021.
• Xu, X., Wildnauer, M., Gregory, J., & Kirchain, R. Accounting for Variation in Life Cycle Inventories: The Case of Portland Cement Production in the U.S., R.E. Kirchain et al. (Eds), REWAS 2016: Towards Materials Resource Sustainability, Springer AG.

A life cycle cost analysis (LCCA) is an analysis methodology that enables engineers, designers, and decision-makers to better understand the economicimpacts of infrastructure decisions over time along with the opportunities that exist to reduce impacts. CSHub buildings LCCA research considers life cycle, context, and future, and also incorporates costs due to anticipated hazards.

News

• Build disaster-proof homes before storms strike, not afterward (The Conversation, August 2016

Topic Summaries

• Building Life Cycle Cost Analysis: Life Cycle Costs of Hazard Resistant Buildings

Research Briefs

• Concrete Building Design Optimization for Reduced Life-Cycle Impacts (April 2018)
• A Break-Even Hazard Mitigation Metric (July 2016)
• Value of Building Life-Cycle Cost Analysis (May 2015)

• Adopting a Life-Cycle Perspective (April 2011)

Publications

• Noori, M., Miller, R., Kirchain, R., Gregory, J., “How much should be invested in hazard mitigation? Development of a streamlined hazard mitigation cost assessment framework,” International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction (2018)
• Noshadravan, A.; Miller, T.R.; and Gregory, J. “A Lifecycle Cost Analysis of Residential Buildings Including Natural Hazard Risk” Journal of Construction and Engineering Management, 2017.

In hazard-prone areas, hazard-induced maintenance costs can be significant over the lifetime of a building. In fact, the costs of hazard-related repairs can exceed the initial building cost. Our team has developed a building life cycle cost analysis (LCCA) approach that incorporates operational costs associated with energy consumption and repairs due to damage from hazards. Our case studies have demonstrated that investing in more hazard-resistant residential construction in certain locations is very cost-effective.

News

• Hurricane-resistant construction may be undervalued by billions of dollars annually (July 2022)
• MIT Climate Portal: Climate-Resilient Infrastructure (September 2021)
• MIT News: Mitigating hazards with vulnerability in mind (September 2021)
• The Hill: Climate Resilience is the New Sustainability (May 2021)
• Building to Better Weather the Storm (MIT News, June 2017)
• Build disaster-proof homes before storms strike, not afterward (The Conversation, August 2016)
• New approach calculates benefits of building hazard-resistant structures (MIT News, December 2016)

Topic Summaries

• Fact Sheet: Resilient Buildings (May 2020)
• Topic Summary: City Texture and Urban Resilience (March 2020)
• Information Sheet: Building Resilience (May 2018)
• Building Life Cycle Cost Analysis: Life Cycle Costs of Hazard Resistant Buildings (February 2017)

Research Briefs

• Kinetic temperature of structures: a new approach for building resilience assessment (April 2023)
• Measuring Cost Burden of Hurricane Repairs on Socially Vulnerable Households (October 2022)
• Molecular Dynamics-based Resilience Assessment of Structures (May 2021)
• Incorporating Neighborhood Texture Into Hurricane Loss Estimation (March 2021)
• Precipitation Flooding in Urban Environments (March 2021)
• Molecular Dynamics-based Resilience Assessment of Structures (July 2020)
• Generating Building-specific Fragility Curves (May 2019)
• Validation of Molecular Dynamics-Based Structural Damage Models (March 2019)
• Creating Customized Fragility Curves for Resilient Building (November 2018)
• Resilience Assessment of Structures Using Molecular Dynamics (June 2018)
• Prioritizing Resilient Retrofits (February 2018)
• Planning More Resilient Cities (March 2017)
• A Break-Even Hazard Mitigation Metric (July 2016)
• Quantifying Hazard Life-Cycle Cost (August 2014)
• Hazard Mitigation Assessment Methodologies (August 2013)
• Quantitative Assessment of Resilience in Residential Building Envelope Systems (March 2013)

Publications

• Keremides, Konstantinos; Qomi, Mohammad Javad Abdolhosseini; Pellenq, Roland J. M.; and Ulm, Franz-Josef. “Potential-of-Mean-Force Approach for Molecular Dynamics–Based Resilience Assessment of Structures” Journal of Engineering Mechanics, Volume 144, Issue 8 (2018)
• Keremidis, K., Vartziotis, T., & Ulm, F. J. (2023). Kinetic Temperature of Structures for Resilience, Instability, and Failure Analysis of Building Systems. Journal of Engineering Mechanics, 149(2), 04022110.
• Manav, Ipek Bensu, et al. “Texture-Informed Approach for Hurricane Loss Estimation: How Discounting Neighborhood Texture Leads to Undervaluing Wind Mitigation.” Natural Hazards Review 23.4 (2022): 05022006.
• Noori, M., Miller, R., Kirchain, R., Gregory, J., “How much should be invested in hazard mitigation? Development of a streamlined hazard mitigation cost assessment framework,” International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction (2018)
• Noshadravan, A.; Miller, T.R.; and Gregory, J. “A Lifecycle Cost Analysis of Residential Buildings Including Natural Hazard Risk” Journal of Construction and Engineering Management (2007).

In economics, competition plays a regulatory function in balancing supply and demand: as competition increases, the price for similar goods and services is expected to decrease. As transportation agencies search for new, cost-effective ways to preserve existing infrastructure assets, our research shows how increasing inter-industry competition (meaning between firms who pave with material substitutes) can have an impact on the price of paving materials. The work suggests that the introduction of policies that promote industry-wide competition can potentially offer agencies a way to be more efficient with their financial resources.

Topic Summaries

• Industry Competition and Paving Material Unit Costs (August 2020)
• Measuring the Impact of Competition on Paving Material Prices (November 2017)

Research Briefs

• Improving Pavement Network Conditions Through Competition (October 2020)
• Estimating The Impact Of Competition (February 2016)

Peer-Reviewed Publications

• Swei, O., Miller, T.R, Akbarian, M., Gregory, J., and Kirchain, R. “Effects of Industry Competition in the Paving Sector.” Under Review.

Webinars

• Measuring the Impact of Competition on Paving Material Prices

In 2017, America’s roads received a D rating by the American Society of Civil Engineers. For cities and states to improve their grade, they must first be able to accurately measure the quality of their pavements. Unfortunately, this often proves expensive and challenging.

To address this problem, CSHub researchers have created Carbin, an app that directs users to their destination while measuring pavement quality and its effect on fuel consumption.

With every trip they take, Carbin users contribute to a growing public map of pavement and emissions data that can help to inform infrastructure repair and fight climate change. Carbin has already surveyed hundreds of thousands of lane miles around the globe in countries like Mexico, China, and the United States.

Learn more about the app and the research behind it in this article in The New York Times or in the topic summary and research brief below. You can download Carbin on Google Play or the App Store.

News

• MIT News: What a Single Car can Say About Traffic (February 2021)
• MIT News: Crowdsourcing data on road quality and excess fuel consumption (May 2021)
• The New York Times: Mapping Potholes by Phone (January 2020)
• Cheddar: Crowdsourcing Road-Quality Info With the Carbin App (December 2019)
• MIT News: Reading the Heartbeat of the Road (January 2019)

Topic Summaries

• Carbin: Crowdsourcing Pavement Data (March 2020)

Research Briefs

• Carbin: Crowdsourcing Road Conditions at Scale (September 2021)
• Assessing Road Quality Using Crowdsourced Smartphone Measurements (July 2020)

Publications

• Botshekan, M., Asaadi, E., Roxon, J., Ulm, F. J., Tootkaboni, M., & Louhghalam, A. (2021). Smartphone-enabled road condition monitoring: From accelerations to road roughness and excess energy dissipation. Proceedings of the Royal Society A, 477(2246), 20200701.
• Botshekan, M., Asadi, E., Roxon, J., Ulm, F-J., Tootkaboni, M., Louhghalam, A. (2021). Smartphone-enabled road condition monitoring: from accelerations to road roughness and excess energy dissipation. The Proceedings of the Royal Society, 477: 20200701. 20200701
• Botshekan, M., Roxon, J., Wanichkul, A., Chirananthavat, T., Chamoun, J., Ziq, M., . . . Ulm, F. (2020). Roughness-induced vehicle energy dissipation from crowdsourced smartphone measurements through random vibration theory. Data-Centric Engineering, 1, E16.
• Botshekan, M., Ulm, F-J. (2021). “Spatial and temporal memory effects in the Nagel-Schreckenberg model for crowdsourced traffic property determination.” Physical Review E, 104, 044102.

Life cycle assessment (LCA) considers all life-cycle phases from initial construction to demolition. For pavements, this includes the operation, maintenance, and end of life phases, and factors such as traffic delay, lighting demand, and future maintenance. CSHub models quantify environmental impacts across a pavement’s life cycle from manufacturing to disposal and offer detailed analyses of the use phase.

News

• MIT News: New framework empowers pavement life-cycle decision-making while reducing data collection burden (August 2024)
• Real Clear Energy: ‘Nutrition Facts’ for Emissions: Why EPA Must Account for the Whole Life Cycle in Low Carbon Labels (October 2024)
• The Hill: We’re overhauling our cars in the name of energy efficiency — why not our roads? (January 2024)
• MIT News: Study: Carbon-neutral pavements are possible by 2050, but rapid policy and industry action are needed (February 2023)
• MIT News: Concrete’s role in reducing building and pavement emissions (September 2021)
• Yahoo News: Could ‘cool pavements’ help in the battle against climate change? (August 2021)
• MIT News: Countering climate change with cool pavements (August 2021)
• The Boston Globe: Solutions to Extreme Heat Can be Found in Our Streets (August 2021)
• The Conversation: Lighter Pavement Really Does Cool Cities (June 2021)

Topic Summaries

• Mitigating Climate Change with Reflective Pavements (November 2020)
• Context Dependent Pavement Life Cycle Analysis (July 2019)
• Life Cycle Thinking: Pavements (March 2018)

Research Briefs

• Solutions for Net-zero Carbon Concrete in U.S. Pavements (July 2021)
• Life Cycle Carbon Uptake of the United States Pavement Network (January 2021)
• Impact of Use Phase in Pavement Life Cycle Assessment: A Case Study of Alternative Designs in Different Contexts (April 2014)
• Key Drivers of Uncertainty in Pavement LCA (November 2012)
• Comparative Pavement LCAs With Uncertainty (June 2012)
• Network, Pavements and Fuel Consumption (April 2012)
• Adopting a Life Cycle Perspective (April 2011)
• Designing for Sustainable Pavements (March 2011)

Publications

• Akbarian M., Moeini-Ardakani S.S., Ulm F.-J., Nazzal M., “Mechanistic Approach to Pavement-Vehicle Interaction and Its Impact on Life-Cycle Assessment,” Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2306, Pages 171-179, 2012
• AzariJafari, H., Guest, G., Kirchain, R., Gregory, J., & Amor, B. (2021). Towards comparable environmental product declarations of construction materials: Insights from a probabilistic comparative LCA approach. Building and Environment, 190, 107542.
• AzariJafari, H., Guest, G., Kirchain, R., Gregory, J., Amor, B. “Towards comparable environmental product declarations of construction materials: Insights from a probabilistic comparative LCA approach”, Building and Environment, 190: 2021, 107542. 2021.
• AzariJafari, H., Guo, F., Gregory, J., & Kirchain, R. (2023). Solutions to achieve carbon-neutral mixtures for the US pavement network. The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, 1-14.
• AzariJafari, H., Rangelov, M., Gregory, J., & Kirchain, R. (2023). Suitability of EPDs for Supporting Life Cycle and Comparative Analysis of Concrete Mixtures. Environmental Science & Technology, 57(19), 7321-7327
• Gregory, J., AzariJafari, H., Vahidi, E., Guo, F., Ulm, F.J., Kirchain, R. “The role of concrete in life cycle greenhouse gas emissions of US buildings and pavements.” PNAS. September 14, 2021 118 (37).
• Gregory, J., Noshadravan, A., Olivetti, E.A., Kirchain, R., “A Methodology for Robust Comparative Life Cycle Assessments Incorporating Uncertainty.” Environmental Science & Technology, Vol. 50: Issue. 12: Pages. 6397-6405.
• Gregory, Jeremy, et al. “The role of concrete in life cycle greenhouse gas emissions of US buildings and pavements.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 118.37 (2021): e2021936118.
• Guo, F., AzariJafari, H., Gregory, J., Kirchain, R. “Environmental and economic evaluations of treatment strategies for pavement network performance-based planning”, Transportation Research D: Transport and Environment. Volume 99, October 2021, 103016
• Guo, Fengdi, et al. “A weighted multi-output neural network model for the prediction of rigid pavement deterioration.” International Journal of Pavement Engineering 23.8 (2022): 2631-2643.
• Huang, Y., Wolfram, P., Miller, R., Azarijafari, H., Guo, F., An, K., … & Wang, C. (2022). Mitigating life cycle GHG emissions of roads to be built through 2030: Case study of a Chinese province. Journal of Environmental Management,
• J. Gregory, A. Noshadravan, O. Swei, X. Xu, R. Kirchain, “The importance of incorporating uncertainty into pavement life cycle cost and environmental impact analyses,” Proceedings of the Pavement Life-Cycle Assessment Symposium 2017, Champaign, IL, April 12-13, 2017
• J. Mack, J. Gregory, R. Kirchain, “Accounting for Rehabilitation Activity Uncertainty in a Pavement Life Cycle Assessment using Probability and Decision Tree Analysis,” Proceedings of the International Concrete Sustainability Conference, Miami, FL, May 11-13, 2015.
• J. Mack, X. Xu, J. Gregory, R. Kirchain, “Developing robust rehabilitation scenario profiles for life cycle assessment using decision tree analysis,” Proceedings of the International Symposium on Pavement LCA, Davis, CA, October 14-16, 2014.
• Kirchain, R., Gregory, J., Olivetti, E. “Environmental life-cycle assessment.” Nature Materials, 16 693–697 (2017)
• Loijos A., Akbarian M., Sahni S., Ochsendorf J., “Sensitivity Analysis of the Life Cycle Environmental Performance of Asphalt and Concrete Pavements,” Concrete Sustainability Conference, 2010
• Loijos A., Santero N., Ochsendorf J. “Life cycle climate impacts of the US concrete pavement network.” Resources, Conservation and Recycling. Volume 72, March 2013, Pages 76-83, 2013.
• Louhghalam A., Akbarian, M., Ulm F-J. “Carbon management of infrastructure performance: Integrated big data analytics and pavement-vehicle-interactions”. Journal of Cleaner Production. Volume 142, Part 2, 20 January 2017, Pages 956-964. 2016
• M. Akabarian, F. Ulm, X. Xu, R. Kirchain, J. Gregory, A. Louhghalam, J. Mack, “Overview of pavement life cycle assessment use phase research at the MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub”, ASCE T&DI International Airfield and Highway Pavements Conference, Chicago, IL, July 21-24, 2019.
• Mack J., Ulm F.-J., Gregory J., Kirchain R., Akbarian M., Swei O., Wildnauer M., “Designing Sustainable Concrete Pavements using the Pavement-ME Mechanistic Empirical Pavement Design and Life Cycle Analysis,” International Conference on Long-Life Concrete Pavement, 2012
• Noshadravan A., Wildnauer M., Gregory J., Kirchain R., “Comparative Pavement Life Cycle Assessment with Parameter Uncertainty,” Transportation Research Part D, 25, Pages 135-138, 2013
• Noshadravan A., Xu X., Gregory J., Kirchain R., “Uncertainty management in comparative life-cycle assessment of pavements”, Proceedings of the 12th International Symposium on Concrete Roads, Prague, Czech Republic, September 23-26, 2014.
• Safari, K., & AzariJafari, H. (2021). Challenges and opportunities for integrating BIM and LCA: Methodological choices and framework development. Sustainable Cities and Society, 67, 102728.
• Santero N., Loijos A., Ochsendorf J., “Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction Opportunities for Concrete Pavements,” Journal of Industrial Ecology, Volume 17, Issue 6, Pages 859–868, 2013
• Xin Xu, Mehdi Akbarian, Jeremy Gregory, Randolph Kirchain, “Role of the use phase and pavement-vehicle interaction in comparative pavement life cycle assessment as a function of context”, Journal of Cleaner Production, 2019.
• Xu X., Noshadravan A., J. Gregory, R. Kirchain, “Scenario analysis of comparative pavement life cycle assessment using a probabilistic approach,” Proceedings of the International Symposium on Pavement LCA, Davis, CA, October 14-16, 2014.
• Xu, X., Gregory J., Kirchain R., “Role of the Use Phase and Pavement-Vehicle Interaction in Comparative Pavement Life Cycle Assessment” Transportation Research Board 94th Annual Meeting. No. 15-4011. 2015.
• Xu, X., Gregory, J., &  Kirchain, R. “Role of the Use Phase and Pavement-Vehicle Interaction in Comparative Pavement Life Cycle Assessment,” Proceedings of the Transportation Research Board 97th Annual Meeting, 2018.
• Xu, X., Wildnauer, M., Gregory, J., & Kirchain, R. “Accounting for Variation in Life Cycle Inventories: The Case of Portland Cement Production in the U.S.”, R.E. Kirchain et al. (Eds), REWAS 2016: Towards Materials Resource Sustainability, Springer AG.

A life cycle cost analysis (LCCA) is an analysis methodology that enables engineers, designers, and decision-makers to better understand the economic impacts of infrastructure decisions over time along with the opportunities that exist to reduce impacts. CSHub pavements LCCA research considers life cycle, context, and future, and also incorporates risk.

News

• Paving ahead (MIT News, April 2019)

Topic Summaries

• Life Cycle Thinking: Pavements (March 2018)
• Measuring the Impact of Competition on Paving Material Prices (November 2017)
• Pavement Life Cycle Cost Assessment: Price Projection Modeling (April 2016)

Research Briefs

• The influence of analysis period on pavement network performance (November 2017)
• Estimating The Impact Of Competition (February 2016)
• Developing a Network-Level Pavement Management Model (November 2015)
• Material-Specific Price Projections: Implementation (September 2014)
• LCCA of Pavements: Scenario Analysis (February 2014)
• Initial Cost Uncertainty in LCCA (May 2013)

Publications

• Guo, F., AzariJafari, H., Gregory, J., Kirchain, R. “Environmental and economic evaluations of treatment strategies for pavement network performance-based planning”, Transportation Research D: Transport and Environment. Volume 99, October 2021, 103016
• M. Akbarian, O. Swei, and J. Gregory, Probabilistic Characterization of Life-Cycle Agency and User Costs: Case Study of Minnesota, Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2639, 2017, pp. 93–101. 2017
• O. Swei, M. Akabarian, J. Gregory, R. Kirchain, J. Mack, “A review of pavement economic studies at the MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub”, ASCE T&DI International Airfield and Highway Pavements Conference, Chicago, IL, July 21-24, 2019.
• Omar, S., Gregory, J., & Kirchain, R. (2018). Does Pavement Degradation Follow a Random Walk with Drift? Evidence from Variance Ratio Tests for Pavement Roughness, Journal of Infrastructure Systems, Vol 24, no.4, 2018.
• Swei O., Gregory J., Kirchain R., Pavement Management Systems: Opportunities to Improve the Current Frameworks Transportation Research Board 95th Annual Meeting, No. 16-2940. 2016.
• Swei, O. Probabilistic Life-Cycle Cost Analysis of Pavements: Drivers of Variation and Implications of Context, Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2523. Pages 47–55. 2016.
• Swei, O., Gregory, J., and Kirchain, R. Probabilistic Approach for Long-Run Price Projections: Case Study of Concrete and Asphalt. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management. 2016.
• Swei, O., Gregory, J., Kirchain, R., Construction cost estimation: A parametric approach for better estimates of expected cost and variation. Transportation Research Part B: Methodological. Volume 101, July 2017, Pages 295–305

Pavement management systems are a form of asset management that provide a framework by which transportation agencies monitor the performance of their pavement networks, set performance targets, and implement strategies to meet those performance targets. CSHub research in this area seeks to improve the methods used to allocate available funding across the needs of the pavement network by developing models to predict the performance of the network and optimize the allocation of funds. This process of performance-based planning enables economically efficient management of pavement networks by optimizing pavement network performance for a given cost.

News

• MIT News: New framework empowers pavement life-cycle decision-making while reducing data collection burden (August 2024)
• The Hill: We’re overhauling our cars in the name of energy efficiency — why not our roads? (January 2024)
• The Hill: Before building sustainably, let’s define ‘sustainability’ (June 2021)
• The Hill: America’s Roads Are Crumbling, But We Can Make Them Sustainable (June 2020)
• MIT News: Improving Pavement Networks by Predicting the Future (February 2020)

Topic Summaries

• Network Asset Management (April 2019)
• Improving America’s Road Infrastructure by Embracing Uncertainty (March 2022)

Research Briefs

• Comparison of Feedforward and Recurrent Neural Networks for Predicting Pavement Roughness (January 2021)
• Improving Pavement Network Conditions Through Competition (October 2020)
• The Role of Pavements in Meeting GHG Reduction Targets (August 2019)
• Influence of Treatment Types on Performance-based Planning (August 2019)
• The influence of incorporating uncertainties and treatment path dependence in performance-based planning analyses (November 2018)
• The influence of analysis period on pavement network performance (November 2017)
• Developing a Network-Level Pavement Management Model (November 2015)

Publications

• Batouli, M., Swei, O., Zhu, J., Gregory, J., & Kirchain, R. (2015). “A Simulation Framework for Network Level Cost Analysis in Infrastructure Systems,” in O’Brien W., Ponticelli, S., (Eds.), Computing in Civil Engineering 2015, ASCE.
• F. Guo, O. Swei, J. Gregory, R. Kirchain, “Sensitivity Analysis of Performance Metrics to Different Parameters in Pavement Management Systems”, the Transportation Research Board 97th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers, Washington, DC, January 7-11, 2018. (PDF)
• Guo, F., Azarijafari, H., Gregory, J., & Kirchain, R. (2021). Environmental and economic evaluations of treatment strategies for pavement network performance-based planning. Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment, 99, 103016.
• Guo, F., AzariJafari, H., Gregory, J., Kirchain, R. “Environmental and economic evaluations of treatment strategies for pavement network performance-based planning”, Transportation Research D: Transport and Environment. Volume 99, October 2021, 103016
• Guo, F., Gregory, J., Kirchain, R. “Incorporating cost uncertainty and path dependence into treatment selection for pavement networks,” Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies,
  Volume 110, Jan 2020, Pages 40-55,
• Guo, Fengdi, et al. “Environmental and economic evaluations of treatment strategies for pavement network performance-based planning.” Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment 99 (2021): 103016.
• Guo. F., Xingang, Z., Gregory, J., Kirchain, R. (2021) “A weighted multi-output neural network model for the prediction of rigid pavement deterioration,” International Journal of Pavement Engineering,
• Swei O., Gregory J., Kirchain R., “Does Pavement Degradation Follow a Random Walk with Drift? Evidence from Variance Ratio Tests for Pavement Roughness”, Journal of Infrastructure Systems, Vol. 24, No. 4, 2018.
• Swei O., Gregory J., Kirchain R., “Embedding Flexibility within Pavement Management: Technique to Improve Expected Performance of Roadway Systems”, Journal of Infrastructure Systems, Vol. 25, No. 3, 2019.
• Swei O., Gregory J., Kirchain R., “Pavement Management Systems: Opportunities to Improve the Current Frameworks” Transportation Research Board 95th Annual Meeting, No. 16-2940. 2016.

Pavement vehicle interaction (PVI) is a concept that looks at the interaction between a vehicle’s tires and the roadway surface on which it is driving. It is also known as rolling resistance. Three factors relating to a road’s surface condition and structural properties contribute significantly to PVI: roughness, which refers to how bumpy or smooth a road is; texture, the abrasiveness of the road surface; and deflection, the bending of a pavement under the weight of a vehicle. Traffic patterns and temperature are influential factors as well.

PVI leads to excess fuel consumption (EFC), which is wasted fuel consumption beyond what is required to move a vehicle. EFC contributes to smog and greenhouse gas emissions and impacts drivers, states, and municipalities financially.

CSHub research has led to models that quantify excess fuel consumption due to PVI for pavement segments and pavement networks.

News

• The Hill: We’re overhauling our cars in the name of energy efficiency — why not our roads? (January 2024)
• Stiffer Roads Could Improve Truck Fuel Efficiency (MIT News, July 2020)
• Reading the heartbeat of the road (MIT News, February 2019)
• Well-maintained roadways improve fuel efficiency (MIT News, February 2016)
• Data-driven approach to pavement management lowers emissions (MIT News, July 2016)
• Civil engineers find savings where the rubber meets the road (MIT News, May 2012)

Topic Summaries

• Pavement Vehicle Interaction Information Sheet (July 2018)
• Lowering Vehicle Fuel Consumption and Emissions Through Better Pavement Design and Maintenance(October 2016)

Research Briefs

• Assessing Road Quality Using Crowdsourced Smartphone Measurements (July 2020)
• Analyzing Pavement-Vehicle Interaction through Bench-Top Experiments (August 2015)
• The Impact of Traffic Jams on PVI Estimates (May 2015)
• Mapping of Excess Fuel Consumption (December 2014)
• PVI Mechanistic Model Gen II (December 2013)
• PVI Mechanistic Model Refined (April 2013)
• Deterioration Induced Roughness in the US Network (February 2013)
• Potential Roadway Network Savings and PVI (July 2012)
• Network, Pavements and Fuel Consumption (April 2012)
• Smoothness Matters, But… (January 2012)
• When the Rubber Hits the Road (June 2011)

Publications

• Akbarian M., Moeini-Ardakani S.S., Ulm F.-J., Nazzal M., “Mechanistic Approach to Pavement-Vehicle Interaction and Its Impact on Life-Cycle Assessment,” Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2306, Pages 171-179, 2012
• Akbarian, M., Kirchain, R., Gregory, J., & Ulm, FJ. “Probabilistic Evaluation of Pavement-Induced Excess Fuel Consumption Given Data Unavailability and Future Uncertainty,” Proceedings of Transportation Research Board 97th Annual Meeting, 2018.
• Akbarian, Mehdi, et al. “Network Analysis of Virginia’s Interstate Pavement-Vehicle Interactions: Mapping of Roughness and Deflection-Induced Excess Fuel Consumption.” Transportation Research Board 94th Annual Meeting. No. 15-5752. 2015.
• AzariJafari, H., Gregory, J., Kirchain, R. “Potential Contribution of Deflection-Induced Fuel Consumption to U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions”, Transportation Research Record, 2020.
• Booshehrian A., Louhghalam A., Khazanovich L., Ulm F-J. “Assessment of Pavement Deflection-Caused Fuel Consumption via FWD Data,” Transportation Research Board 95th Annual Meeting, No. 16-6246. 2016.
• Coleri, E., Harvey, J., Zaabar, I., Louhghalam, A., Chatti, K., “Model Development, Field Section Characterization, and Model Comparison for Excess Vehicle Fuel Use due to Pavement Structural Response” No. 16-6191. 2016.
• F. Giustozzi, F. Ponzoni, A. Louhghalam, R. Kirchain & J. Gregory (2018) “Sensitivity analysis of a deflection-induced pavement–vehicle interaction model, Road Materials and Pavement Design,” DOI: 10.1080/14680629.2018.1479288
• Louhghalam A., Akbarian M., Ulm F.-J., Pavement Infrastructures Footprint: The Impact of Pavement Properties on Vehicle Fuel Consumption, Euro-C 2014 conference: Computational Modeling of Concrete and Concrete Structures, 2014
• Louhghalam A., Akbarian M., Ulm, F-J. “Scaling Relationships of Dissipation-Induced Pavement-Vehicle Interactions” Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board (2014), Issue 2457, Pages 95-104.
• Louhghalam A., Akbarian, M., Ulm F-J. “Carbon management of infrastructure performance: Integrated big data analytics and pavement-vehicle-interactions.” Journal of Cleaner Production. Volume 142, Part 2, 20 January 2017, Pages 956-964. 2016
• Louhghalam A., Akbarian, M., Ulm, Franz-Josef. “Flugge’s Conjecture: Dissipation- versus Deflection-Induced Pavement-Vehicle Interactions” Journal of Engineering Mechanics, Volume 140, Issue 8,  Article Number 04014053, August 2014
• Louhghalam, A., Akbarian M., and Ulm F-J. “Roughness-induced pavement-vehicle interactions: Key parameters and impact on vehicle fuel consumption.” Transportation Research Board 94th Annual Meeting. No. 15-2429. 2015.
• Louhghalam, A., Mazdak T., and Ulm F-J. “Roughness-Induced Vehicle Energy Dissipation: Statistical Analysis and Scaling.” Journal of Engineering Mechanics, 2015: 04015046.
• M. Akabarian, F. Ulm, X. Xu, R. Kirchain, J. Gregory, A. Louhghalam, J. Mack, “Overview of pavement life cycle assessment use phase research at the MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub,” ASCE T&DI International Airfield and Highway Pavements Conference, Chicago, IL, July 21-24, 2019.
• Mack, J., Akbarian, M., Ulm, F-J. Louhghalam A. “Overview of Pavement Vehicle Interaction Related Research at the MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub.” Presented at the 13^th International Symposium on Concrete Pavements, Berlin, Germany, 2018.
• Santero N., Loijos A., Ochsendorf J., “Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction Opportunities for Concrete Pavements,” Journal of Industrial Ecology, Volume 17, Issue 6, Pages 859–868, 2013
• Xin Xu, Mehdi Akbarian, Jeremy Gregory, Randolph Kirchain, “Role of the use phase and pavement-vehicle interaction in comparative pavement life cycle assessment as a function of context,” Journal of Cleaner Production, 2019.
• Xu, X., Akbarian, M., Gregory, J., Kirchain, R. “Role of the use phase and pavement-vehicle interaction in comparative pavement life cycle assessment as a function of context,” Journal of Cleaner Production, Volume 230, 2019, Pages 1156-1164

The Alkali-Silica Reaction (ASR) causes expansion and cracking in concrete. This can result in structural problems in concrete infrastructure that can limit the infrastructure’s service life and also generate high maintenance costs. CSHub research seeks to better understand the reaction and its mechanisms, which is key to determining solutions that will prolong the life of concrete infrastructure.

News

• Investigating a Big Dam Concrete Problem (MIT News, September 2017)

Research Briefs

• Investigating the Mechanisms of ASR Using Atomistic Methods (July 2020)
• Simulating the Formation of ASR Gels (April 2019)
• Atomistic Modeling of ASR Gel (August 2017)
• Bottom-up Modeling of ASR in Concrete (March 2016)

Publications

• Dufresne, A., Arayro, J., Zhou, T., Ioannidou, I., Ulm, F.J., Pellenq, R., & Béland L. K. Atomistic and mesoscale simulation of sodium and potassium adsorption in cement paste, The Journal of Chemical Physics, Volume 149, 70, 2018.
• Dupuis, R; Béland, L.K. & Pellenq, R. Molecular simulation of silica gels: Formation, dilution, and drying, Physical Review Materials, Volume 3, 7, 2019.

Concrete sustainability begins at the most fundamental level: understanding the molecular structure of cement paste—calcium-silicate-hydrate (C-S-H), the main product of the hydration of portland cement and the primarily responsible for strength in cement-based materials.

News

• MIT News: Visualizing cement hydration on a molecular level (June 2021)

Research Briefs

• Resilience at High Temperatures (January 2014)
• Predicting C-S-H Aging (March 2013)
• C-S-H Texture From Sorption Isotherms (July 2012)
• Validating Effects of Cement Paste Composition on Mechanics (June 2012)
• Gaining Strength by Splitting Water (February 2012)
• Holding It Together – C-S-H Cohesion (December 2011)
• Why Wet C-S-H is Weak (October 2011)
• When Concrete Takes (part of) the Heat (September 2011)
• What’s in Your Concrete? (Part 1) (February 2011)
• What’s in Your Concrete? (Part 2) (April 2011)
• C-S-H: Water, Water Everywhere (December 2010)
• The Hidden Forces of Setting (November 2010)
• Locking Mercury into Concrete (October 2010)
• Fly Ash is Critical For C-A-S-H (September 2010)

Publications

• Abdolhosseini Qomi, M.J.; Bauchy, M.; & Pellenq, R. “Nanoscale Composition-Texture-Property-Relation in Calcium-Silicate-Hydrates,” W. Andreoni & S. Yip, (Eds.), Handbook of Materials Modeling (pp 1-32), Switzerland: Springer Nature AG, 2018.
• Bauchy, M.; Laubie, H.; Qomi, M. J. Abdolhosseini; et al. “Fracture toughness of calcium-silicate-hydrate from molecular dynamics simulations” Journal of Non-Crystalline Solids. Volume 419, Pages 58-64, July 2015.
• Bauchy, M; Qomi, Abdolhosseini Qomi, MJ ; Ulm, FJ; Pellenq, RJM, Order and disorder in calcium-silicate-hydrate, Journal of Chemical Physics, Volume 140, Issue 21, Article Number 214503, 2014
• Bonnaud, P.A.; Ji, Q.; Van Vliet, K.J., Effects of elevated temperature on the structure and properties of calcium-silicate-hydrate gels: the role of confined water, Soft Matter, Volume 9, Issue 28, Pages 6418, 2013
• Bonnaud, PA; Ji, Q; Coasne, B; Pellenq, RJM; Van Vliet, KJ, Thermodynamics of Water Confined in Porous Calcium-Silicate-Hydrates, Langmuir, Volume 28, Issue 31, Pages 11422-11432, 2012
• Del Gado, E.; Ioannidou, K.; Masoero, E.; et al. “A soft matter in construction – Statistical physics approach to formation and mechanics of C-S-H gels in cement” European Physical Journal-Special Topics, Volume 223, Issue 11, Pages 2285-2295, October 2014
• Goyal, A., Palaia, I., Ioannidou, K., Ulm, F. J., Van Damme, H., Pellenq, R. J. M., … & Del Gado, E. (2021). The physics of cement cohesion. Science Advances, 7(32), eabg5882.
• Ioannidou, K; Pellenq, RJM; Del Gado, E, Controlling local packing and growth in calcium-silicate-hydrate gels, Soft Matter, Volume 10, Issue 8, Pages 1121-1133, 2014
• Loh, H. C., Kim, H. J., Ulm, F. J., & Masic, A. (2021). Time-Space-Resolved chemical deconvolution of cementitious colloidal systems using Raman spectroscopy. Langmuir, 37(23), 7019-7031.
• Manzano, H.; Masoero, E.; Lopez-Arbeloa, I.; Jennings, H.M., Shear deformations in calcium silicate hydrates, Soft Matter, Volume 9, Issue 30,  Pages 7333-7341, 2013
• Maragh, J. M., Palkovic, S. D., Shukla, A., Büyüköztürk, O., & Masic, A. (2021). SEM-EDS and microindentation-driven large-area high-resolution chemomechanical mapping and computational homogenization of cementitious materials. Materials Today Communications, 28, 102698.
• Masoero, E; Del Gado, E; Pellenq, RJM; Yip, S; Ulm, FJ, Nano-scale mechanics of colloidal C-S-H gels, Soft Matter, Volume 10, Issue 3, Pages 491-499, 2014
• Seymour, L. M., Keenan-Jones, D., Zanzi, G. L., & Masic, A. (2021). Reactive Synthetic Pozzolans in Mortars from Ancient Water Infrastructure Serving Rome and Pompeii. Available at SSRN 3885241.
• Seymour, Linda M., et al. “Hot mixing: Mechanistic insights into the durability of ancient Roman concrete.” Science Advances 9.1 (2023): eadd1602.
• Seymour, Linda M., et al. “Reactive binder and aggregate interfacial zones in the mortar of Tomb of Caecilia Metella concrete, 1C BCE, Rome.” Journal of the American Ceramic Society 105.2 (2022): 1503-1518.
• Stefaniuk, D., Hajduczek, M., Weaver, J. C., Ulm, F. J., & Masic, A. (2023). Cementing CO2 into CSH: A step toward concrete carbon neutrality. PNAS nexus, 2(3), pgad052.
• Thomas, JJ; Allen, AJ; Jennings, HM, Density and water content of nanoscale solid C-S-H formed in alkali-activated slag (AAS) paste and implications for chemical shrinkage, Cement and Concrete Research, Volume 42, Issue 2, Pages 377-383, 2012
• Vandamme, M.; Ulm, F.J., Nanoindentation investigation of creep properties of calcium silicate hydrates, Cement and Concrete Research, Volume 52, Pages 38-52, 2013

Clinker, the residue formed by high-temperature burning of coal or similar materials, plays an important role in the composition of cement and contributes to the properties of cement in different ways. Our research provides a fundamental understanding of the relationship between the surface energy of cement phases (the phases in clinker) and their electronic structure using quantum mechanics-based simulations. Researchers use this knowledge to suggest strategies for modifying clinker materials to improve those materials and lower carbon dioxide emissions. The discoveries and validations made possible by CSHub models would have taken decades to achieve experimentally.

Research Briefs

• Quantum Clinker Engineering (October 2012)
• Crystallinity of Cement Clinkers: Application of Rietveld Refinement (April 2012)
• ReaxFF Hydration of Clinker Surfaces (July 2011)
• Clinker Grinding at Breaking Point (May 2011)
• What’s in Your Concrete? (Part 1) (February 2011)
• What’s in Your Concrete? (Part 2) (April 2011)
• Clinker: When Impurities Matter (March 2011)
• The Hidden Forces of Setting (November 2010)

Publications

• Jennings H.M., Bullard J.W., Cement and Concrete Research, From Electrons to Infrastructure: Engineering Concrete from the Bottom Up, Volume: 41, Issue: 7 Special Issue: SI Pages 727-735, 2011.
• Manzano H., Durgun E., Abdolhosseine Qomi M.J., Grossmann J., Pellenq R. J.-M., Impact of Chemical Impurities on the Crystalline Cement Clinker Phases Determined by Atomistic Simulations, Crystal and Growth Design, Volume 11, Pages 2964−2972, 2011.
• VanVliet K., Pellenq R.J.-M., Buehler M., Grossmann J., Jennings H., Ulm F.J., Yip S., Set in Stone: Transforming Concrete into a Sustainable Infrastructure Material, review paper, Material Research Bulletin, Volume: 47, Issue: 4, Pages 395-402, 2012.
• Wilson, W; Krakowiak, KJ; Ulm, FJ, Simultaneous assessment of phase chemistry, phase abundance and bulk chemistry with statistical electron probe micro-analyses: Application to cement clinkers, Cement and Concrete Research, Volume 55, Pages 35-48, 2014

The CSHub has long investigated multifunctional concrete, and has uncovered a way to store energy in a mixture of carbon black, cement, and water. The technology has potential applications towards bulk energy storage, on-road EV charging, self-heating pavements, energy-autarkic structures, and more.

News

• MIT News: MIT conductive concrete consortium cements five-year research agreement with Japanese industry (May 2024)
• MIT engineers create an energy-storing supercapacitor from ancient materials (MIT News, July 2023)
• Is cement the solution to storing renewable energy? Engineers at MIT think so. (Boston Globe, August 2023)
• Energy-storing concrete could form foundations for solar-powered homes (NewScientist, July 2023)

Research Briefs

• Next-generation concrete: Combining loadbearing and energy storage solutions (September 2024)
• Early-Stage Building Lifecycle Optimization of Cost & Carbon Impact (April 2021)

Publications

• Chanut, N., Stefaniuk, D., Weaver, J. C., Zhu, Y., Shao-Horn, Y., Masic, A., & Ulm, F. J. (2023). Carbon–cement supercapacitors as a scalable bulk energy storage solution. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120(32), e2304318120.
• Soliman, N. A., Chanut, N., Deman, V., Lallas, Z., & Ulm, F. J. (2020). Electric energy dissipation and electric tortuosity in electron conductive cement-based materials. Physical Review Materials, 4(12), 125401.

Creep, the gradual structural deformation in concrete under a load, it is known to impact on the durability of concrete structures. CSHub researchers are working to better understand what causes creep starting at the nanoscale.

News

• Riddle of cement’s structure is finally solved (February 2016)

Research Briefs

• Toward Understanding Cement Paste Creep (January 2017)
• Holding It Together – C-S-H Cohesion (December 2011)
• Predicting CSH Aging (March 2013)

Publications

• Bauchy, M., Masoero, E., Ulm, F.-J., & Pellenq, R. Creep of Bulk C-S-H: Insights from Molecular Dynamics Simulations, in C. Hellmich, B. Pichler, J. Kollegger (eds.), CONCREEP 10: Mechanics and Physics of Creep, Shrinkage, and Durability of Concrete and Concrete Structures, ASCE, 2015
• Cao, P., Short, M.P., and Yip, S. “Understanding the mechanisms of amorphous creep through molecular simulation,” PNAS, December 26, 2017, vol. 114 no. 52.
• Haist, M., Divoux, T., Krakowiak, K. J., Skibsted, J., Pellenq, R. J. M., Müller, H. S., & Ulm, F. J. (2021). Creep in reactive colloidal gels: A nanomechanical study of cement hydrates. Physical Review Research, 3(4), 043127.
• Masoero E., Bauchy, M., Del Gado, E., Manzano, H., Pellenq, R. M, Ulm, F.-J., & Yip, S. Kinetic Simulations of Cement Creep: Mechanisms from Shear Deformations of Glasses, C. Hellmich, B. Pichler, J. Kollegger (eds.), CONCREEP 10 : Mechanics and Physics of Creep, Shrinkage, and Durability of Concrete and Concrete Structures, ASCE, 2015
• Short, M. and Yip, S., “Multiscale materials modelling at the mesoscale,” Nature Materials, Volume 12, September 2013.
• Vandamme, M.; Ulm, F.J., “Nanoindentation investigation of creep properties of calcium silicate hydrates,” Cement and Concrete Research, Volume 52, Pages 38-52, 2013

According to an NRMCA analysis, 70% of concrete producers had to turn away business because their CDP workforce was insufficient to satisfy demand. A special project funded by the Concrete Advancement Foundation is investigating the causes of the worker shortage, and ways to improve recruitment and retention.

Read the Executive Summary here.