The Minnesota Department of Transportation (Mn/DOT) began construction on the Minnesota Road Research Project (MnROAD) in 1991 and opened the full-scale pavement research facility to live traffic in 1994. Since the time of its construction, MnROAD, the first major test track since the AASHO Road Test of the 1950s and 1960s, has learned many lessons in pavement testing and pavement engineering on behalf of the greater pavement community. Researchers at the University of Minnesota reviewed these lessons from the first phase of MnROAD (the facility's first ten years of operation) for a project titled MnROAD Lessons Learned. The Lessons Learned project involved over fifty interviews, three hundred published and unpublished reports, papers, and briefs, and an online survey of pavement professionals. This paper, based on the Lessons Learned project, presents a sample of the lasting benefits of MnROAD at the local, state, and national levels. Furthermore, the paper provides extensive references for these benefits in hopes of increasing awareness of this pavement test facility's under-publicized contributions to pavement engineering.
This paper was submitted for the Transportation Research Board 2008 Annual Meeting.
Throughout its decade of operation, MnROAD has become a major resource in the pavement community for test track expertise, pavement data, and pavement research. However, one overlooked benefit of MnROAD’s first phase of operation is the effort of MnROAD engineers to introduce, develop, and encourage the use of new technologies and techniques for pavement engineers. While the list of new products tested and/or developed at MnROAD is extensive, this brief will focus on three products and the influence of those products outside of MnROAD: the Dynamic Cone Penetrometer, used to estimate the strength of subgrades; Ground Penetrating Radar, used in pavements to assess, among other things, layer thicknesses and subsurface conditions; and Continuous Compaction Control, which involves continuously measuring soil compaction and adjusting the needed force to compact the soil. These three highlights emphasize the ability of MnROAD to:
1. serve as a test facility for pavement and pavement foundation experiments,
2. develop new technologies and procedures for pavement engineering,
3. contribute in a significant manner to pavement engineering both at a local and national level.
It is hoped that this brief exposes the reader not only to a few past accomplishments of MnROAD in new technologies but will give a better idea of the promise and ability of MnROAD in the development and adoption of these technologies.
