A new contest offers students at campuses around the world an opportunity to influence the pavement design and maintenance strategies of the future. Designed primarily for engineering students and sponsored by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), the contest involves using data from the long-term pavement performance (LTPP) studies. Students, who are encouraged to team up with a highway agency or a consulting firm, determine the research objective, conduct the research, and analyze the data. The findings are then submitted in the form of a paper for evaluation.

Each participating team will be given a copy of the LTPP DataPave software. The software provides information about traffic, materials, performance, and environment at the more than 2,400 LTPP test sections on in-service highways and roads across the United States. Some of the possible contest topics include traffic load characteristics; identification of distresses related to performance; mechanistic pavement design considerations; and the effects of traffic, environment, and materials on pavement performance.

The contest begins in August 1998 and will run through spring 1999. Winners will receive awards and be recognized at the annual ASCE meeting, and their papers will be published.

University professors can also enter the contest, but in a separate category; a prize will be awarded for the best course curriculum developed using the LTPP data.

For more information about the contest, contact Michael Hewitt at ASCE, 703-295-6115 (fax: 703-295-6132; email: mhewitt@asce.org). To obtain a copy of the DataPave software, contact Kurt Dunn at FHWA, 816-276-2734 (fax: 816-363-3347; email: kurt.dunn@fhwa.dot.gov). Additional information can also be found at FHWA's DataPave web site (datapave.fhwa.dot.gov) and at the ASCE web site (www.asce.org/peta/tech/hw_home.html).

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