ASCE has honored the writing team of Yang-Ping Yao, Ph.D., Aff.M.ASCE; Yang-Zhi Ruan, Aff.M.ASCE; Jun Chen, Ph.D., A.M.ASCE; Yi Geng, S.M.ASCE; Xing Zhang, S.M.ASCE; Bing-Yang Liu, S.M.ASCE; Xiao-Peng Zong, S.M.ASCE; and Gui-Zhen, Aff.M.ASCE, with the 2019 Thomas Fitch Rowland Prize for the paper “Research on a Real-Time Monitoring Platform for Compaction of High Embankment in Airport Engineering,” in the January 2018 issue of the Journal of Construction Engineering.
Quality control of embankment compaction is of great significance to the durability and stability of high-embankment airports. The current method of embankment quality control relies mainly on manual inspection for a limited number of designated locations after the completion of compaction, and this cannot provide the information feedback simultaneously during the compaction or guarantee the compaction quality of the entire working surface. There is an urgent need to develop a new quality-control method of high-embankment airports for the full course of the compaction process.
In this paper, a management platform is developed to monitor the real-time compaction process of a high-embankment airport and evaluate the compaction quality of the working surface. To mitigate the effect of human factors to a minimal extent, an optimal path algorithm is proposed that will guide the real-time compaction trajectory of the impact compactor, and the unmanned vehicle control technology is implemented on the impact compactor. Furthermore, a virtual-reality tool is incorporated in the developed management platform to provide a three-dimensional interactive display for the compaction process. The feasibility and robustness of the developed management platform is validated by a case study in a pilot section of Beijing Daxing International Airport. The data collected in the case study show that the proposed optimal path algorithm and unmanned vehicle control technique enable the construction process to be faster and more efficient and improve the compaction quality of embankment.
The authors are employed in Department of Civil Engineering at Beihang University, in Beijing, China.
The Thomas Fitch Rowland Prize recognizes papers whose author describes in detail accomplished works of construction or which are valuable contributions to construction management and construction engineering.
