20. FREE TRAINING - Mechanomutable Asphalt Materials for the Construction of Smart Pavements

Hi everyone!

Would you like to know more about the Mechanomutable Asphalt Materials? This will be a short free training online.

Let me know your interest by filling the following form:

FREE TRAINING - Registration

Thanks so much!

Cheers, 

ERS14 -PLP

18. Webinar: GENERATION OF NEW TECHNOLOGIES FOR ROADS

Hello!

The project has ended but I have information to share. For now, I want to mention that we have uploaded to YouTube the video of the Webinar: GENERATION OF NEW TECHNOLOGIES FOR ROADS.

Here is the access:

Keep in touch, 

ESR14 - PLP.

17. Thesis defense at the University of Granada

 Hi everyone, 

This is the last post of this blog.  This great opportunity I have had the opportunity to collaborate with arrived at the end. The most expected event along this time: the thesis defense. The circumstances related to the COVID-19 situation forced me to make this event and online presentation carried out the past 24th of November of 2020 at 4:00 pm Spanish time. 

Despite it could be thought that developing this event online could reduce the excitement of the presential or semi-presential event, I can say that it was one of the most emotive and exciting events in my life, more beautiful than I could think I was going to be. My family and friends in Costa Rica and other countries could attend and be there to support me, so that was even better from my point of view. I have a strong feeling of gratitude and pride for the wonderful people I have always had in my life and the people this experience has added to this list. I feel very happy for everything I have been able to achieve so far, learning to respect and enforce my rhythm and my goals.

I had the privilege to have an extraordinary evaluation committee. Dr. German Martinez Montes of the University of Granada, Spain, Dr. Ana Jimenez del Barco Carrion of the University of Granada, Spain, Dr. Luis Guillermo Loria Salazar of the University of Costa Rica, Dr. Ana Maria Rodriguez Alloza of the University of La Laguna, Spain, and Dr. Davide Lo Presti of the University of Nottingham, United Kingdom and the University of Palermo, Italy. 

So that, I would like to share with you all some memories of the event:

Thank you very much for your reading along this time.

ESR14 - PLP.

16. Training week: Resilient Transport Infrastructures

Hi everyone, 

It is a little hard to feel that this experience is finishing. I should write about this training week some months ago, but the last year of a PhD is pretty intense and time seems to be reducing more and more.

This time I am going to tell you about the training week offered by the SMARTI ETN on Resilient Transport Infrastructure at the premises of the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) and the Asphalt Road Research Board (ARRB) in Melbourne Australia. RMIT is a partner of the SMARTI ETN but is also the main partner of SPARC “Smart Pavement Australia Research Collaboration” an Australian training-through-research network looking at the future generation road pavements: https://sparchub.org.au/

At the beginning of the event, the SMARTI ETN fellows had the chance to meet up, share experiences, and start collaborations with the SPARC fellows. Additionally, we had also the chance to disseminate the findings in a dedicated workshop and to receive a demonstration of the ARRB laboratories and Equipment.

After that, we had the opportunity to receive training from academics, governmental bodies, and industry about the following topics: Disaster Management and Resilience, Building Urban Resilience, Resilient Melbourne – Guidelines to become the most liveable city (City of Melbourne), Critical Infrastructure Resilience (Emergency Management Victoria), Climate Change Resilience of Melbourne (Dept. of Environment, Land and Planning – Victorian Government), Victorian Digital Asset Strategy (Office of Projects Victoria), VicROADs resiliency of the road network practical examples, METRO Tunnel resiliency of the railway network practical examples, Auststab presenting options for road resiliency, sensor company for bridge monitoring or sensor solutions for bridge network monitoring, asset management using drones, Augmented reality/Virtual reality/BIM (RMIT, RMS, BIM company in Victoria).

Keep in touch, 

ESR14 - PLP.

15. Webinar: GENERACIÓN DE NUEVAS TECNOLOGÍAS PARA CARRETERAS

¡Hola mi querida red!

Les estoy debiendo algunos post, pronto les escribiré, pero por el momento, quiero invitarlos al primer evento en español del SMARTI. 

En compañía de mis compañeros Mario Manosalvas y Nilo Ruiz , estamos preparado el siguiente Webinar especialmente dirigido a la comunidad hispanohablante, con la aprobación y apoyo del SMARTI ETN.

Queremos tenerlos presentes, así que si quieren participar, por favor incríbanse usando el siguiente link: Inscripción Webinar Español SMARTI  

¡Nos vemos en el evento!

ESR14-PLP.

14. Videos about the Mechanomutable Asphalt Materials

Hi everyone,

During this quarantine time I have noticed that I am in love with the following idea:

Spending time in silence can improve our focus, productivity, and creativity!

So, as an appropriation of this idea, I decided to start with some videos about this project. I hope you like them in the same way as me! This is the product of what the creativity of silence can inspire a researcher working from home. 

Keep in touch, 

ESR14 - PLP.

13. Training week: Automated Transport Infrastructures

Hi everyone,

Finally, I decided to write about this. Sometimes a Marie Slodowska-Curie fellow should select among activities, and the blog was the one that can wait.

This time I am going to talk to you all about the training week we had from 30th September to 4th October 2019, here in Granada, Spain, where I am based. This training week was entitled: Automated Transport Infrastructures.

During the first part of our training week, we presented our projects to the Spanish industry and the Doctoral Studies Panel.

In the second part, we receive training about different kind of elements to use in monitoring of pavements performance: “Distributed fibre optic sensing in roads and transport infrastructures” By Massimo Facchini, “Sensors: technologies, installation and measurement treatment” By Pierre Hornych, and “Automated Transport Infrastructures” By Nizar Lanef. We finish this part with a workshop about the development of the guidelines that SMARTI ETN should provide at the end of the project. 

After that, in the third part, we receive training about “Skilled Professionals and Organizational Success: “Risk assessment in R&D projects” By German Martinez Montes, “Patents and Intellectual property” By Juan Antonio Muñoz Orellana, where are you?” By Rafael Muñoz Beltran and “Funding opportunities to develop your R&D career” By Maria Ros.

We had the opportunity to share time among fellows, having the "Tapas experience" and of course, visiting the Alhambra!

It was really nice to have every one of the other fellows and supervisors here, in my home for the last 2 years!

Talk to you soon! Keep in touch, 

ESR14 - PLP.

12.3. Los materiales asfálticos inteligentes para mayor seguridad del uso de los patinetes

Hola amigos,

Llevo tiempo sin escribir, he estado escribiendo varios artículos que espero que pronto pueda compartir con ustedes. Les tengo pendiente la experiencia acerca de la capacitación en la Universidad de Granada, pero prometo que escribiré de ello.

Ya han visto que les he comentado de lo último en lo que he estado trabajando en mi proyecto: los materiales asfálticos mecanomutables como los materiales codificados que pueden aportar al 5to peldaño de la industria de los vehículos autónomos. Les tengo pendiente el artículo de esto también, espero pronto poder compartirlo.

Como sacaron esta noticia en España, este post va en español, es bueno escribir en mi lengua nativa también, además que este post es cortito, ya que lo que me interesa es compartir con ustedes este video que han sacado en el programa EnRed de Canal Sur:

¡Espero que lo disfruten! ¡Estamos en contacto!

ESR14-PLP

12.2. European Researchers Night 2019

Hi friends!

I know this post comes a little bit late, I am sorry, but I guess, it is better late than never.

During the last post, I told you about the activity I was planning for the European Researchers Night 2019. So, here I want to tell you a little bit about it. I am going to take advantage of the ppt presentation I did.

First of all, I want to introduce you to the research group working on the topic:

I also was lucky to receive the support of my co-workers:

We started by telling about the role of the roads in the industry of autonomous vehicles:

As well as the improvements that are still needed inside the autonomous vehicle industry:

And how this technology can be extended to other areas, as it the case of the electric scooters, which are increasing in number in the big cities, without any regulation and with evidence of fatalities:

As you know, during my Ph.D. project, I am evaluating the possibility to encode the road, by using a device that we are installing first in electric scooters. So, considering also that the event took place at Granada, we tried to introduce a real perception of an encoded road in the bicycle lane of the city:

In the end, we encourage people to use the electric scooter we bring. This scooter was able to stop once it is passing by a certain amount of metallic material in the road:

Finally, I want to show you a picture with the group of students participating with us at the event:

It was really interesting to see as in an event like this, we can bring to people what we are working on at our labs. How in this case, we can encourage the next generation to look for real solutions, to put in practice what we are doing in our research places. These are the events that also remind what to be a Marie Curie fellow means. I should say that I feel really proud of being a Marie Curie fellow, because is more than just getting a Ph.D., is growing as a professional, is becoming a leader.

This time SMARTI ETN had great participation here in Granada, because, taking advantage of the training week here, Natasha (http://smartiesr15.blogspot.com/), Giulia (https://esr4smarti.blogspot.com/), Pawan (https://esr11smartietn.blogspot.com/) and Nilo (https://niloruiz.blogspot.com/) were also participating, with the great company of our project manager Ana Jimenez del Barco Carrion.

From left to right: Natasha, Ana, Guilia, Pawan, Paulina, and Nilo

I am not going to write so much during this post because actually, this is one in two (the last https://esr14smartietn.blogspot.com/2019/08/12-role-of-roads-in-industry-of.html and this one).

Keep in touch,

ESR 14-PLP.

12.1. The role of the roads in the industry of the autonomous vehicles

Hi friends! 

Finally, I am here again! The last year of my PhD is starting, and as it is usual lastly, I have a lot of work to do (if you are or were a PhD student, you know what I am talking about).

This time, I want to talk to you about the European Researchers Night in which I will participate this year in Granada! I am going to present something related with the project I am developing as Marie Curie fellow! In the following link you can see the information of the event: https://lanochedelosinvestigadores.fundaciondescubre.es/actividades/los-caminos-del-futuro-el-traductor-de-los-caminos-inteligentes/

I am sorry, the information is in Spanish, so, here the translation: 

The necessities for the development of the roads for the smart cities from future are more durable roads, with lower maintenance costs, safer, energetically self-sufficient, capable to interact and to communicate with the user and the whole road system for the traffic control and the vehicular transit of vehicles in a autonomous way. 

In this sense, an important task is the development of smart materials which should be capable to be adapted and to work according to the necessities presents in the environment. Among the smart materials are the codified bituminous materials (CBM) already patented by the University of Granada, for the construction of the autonomous vehicles in the automotive industry.

With the CBM materials it is pretended to use low cost metallic materials, as the case of steel fibres obtained from the end of life vehicle tires and steel slag, to codify the road in order to stablish a system of communication among it and the environment.

Therefore, during the activity we will be talking about the technology of the smart materials for roads, with demonstrative exercises related to a “translator for pavements” and “the first prototype of a scooter with self-guided functions” to respond to these codified smart materials. This work is the result of the team work developed between the Department of Physics and the Laboratory of Construction Engineering of the University of Granada, under the 14^th project of the SMARTI European Training Network, which receives funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions for research, technological development and demonstration, under grant n.721493.

So, we are not replacing the already research work done for autonomous vehicles, we want to give a role to the roads: 

The following figure shows a scheme of the system proposed for the scooter:

So, if you are here the 27^th of September, I sincerely invite you to see our presentation! 


If you would like to read more about the research we had already develop in this topic, I also invite you to read and watch the following paper:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S092658051830654X

Keep in touch, 

ESR 14-PLP.

11. Secondment at LAMES - IFSTTAR, Nantes, France

Hi friends,

Today I would like to talk to you all about my secondment at IFSTTAR! I had been really busy to write about it and I should say that it was an amazing experience, so, I wanted to write a good post about it and for that, I was needing some extra time. 

First of all, my secondment was supervised by Dr. Pierre Hornych and Dr. Juliette Blanc from the Laboratory for Modelling, Experimentation and Survey of transport infrastructures (LAMES) of IFSTTAR. I should say that I feel really grateful because not just them, if not, all their work team, researchers, students, and technicians, made me felt like at home. The work environment they have there is great, so, I should say that my coupling there was really quick and I could learn so much for just a month. I really would have liked to be there for more time!

Natasha (ESR15 of SMARTI) and Domenico (ESR3 of SMARTI) are based there, so, I could share more time with them, which was also great, and learn a little bit more about their awesome projects!

During this secondment, I learned about LAMES experience in instrumentation that is possible to use in real scale experiments in the field and at the Carrousel-LAMES facilities. Also, how to treat the corresponding data: back-calculation using the Alizé software, viscoelastic analysis using the Viscoanalyse software and dynamic analysis using the Viscoroute software.

At the end, with their advice, I defined a proposal of instrumentation that could be possible to use in the next step of my project. Although I am not going to build it, it was really useful to have their support in this part of the project.

It sounds that the project is ending, and well, yes, we are starting our last year, so, the time had passed really fast, and now we can see how much we had grown, how we had become a kind of family. We won´t be strangers anymore (the sensitive woman appears again, I am sorry).

I guess I should stop here for the moment, but I promise you all that I am going to share more things like this. Thanks for being tuned.

Keep in touch,

ESR14-PLP.

10. EATA2019 Conference at LabIC.UGR

Hi everyone,

While I write this blog, I should say that I am feeling really tired but actually at the same time really glad for what I want to talk to you all this time: the 8th European Asphalt Technology Association Conference (EATA2019).


The EATA2019 took place between 3th and 5th of June at my host institution: the University of Granada! And I had the privilege to be involved as a part of the organizing committee, which was composed by the teamwork of the LabIC.UGR.

I should say that as a team, we are very satisfied because the activity was a complete success. We attended around 248 people from different countries at the event!

The topics of the event were related with (https://www.eata2019.com/):

• Mechanical, thermal, chemical, or physical properties and characteristics of bitumen, additives, bituminous mixtures, asphalt concrete, as well as mixture design. 

• Sustainability environmental aspects of bituminous materials used for road and other transportation infrastructures (railway, ports, airports…).

• Design and modeling of pavement behavior and performance, structural evaluation, stress/strain and thermal characterization and calculation, vehicle/road interaction, climatic effects and numerical and analytical modeling for the different bituminous layers of roads and other transportation infrastructures (railway, ports, airports…).

• New mixtures and mixture components, including smart and innovative asphalt pavements.

• Construction and rehabilitation procedures, as well as asphalt production technologies. 

The best papers were selected to be published in a Special Issue of the Journal of Road Materials and Pavement Design, as well as the three of the best poster presentations who won the EATA2019 award. 

I want to tell you here that I won one of the three best poster presentations! It is really satisfying to know that with dedication, persistence, and daring to take the associated risks you can improve in those areas you are not confident yet.  

I also have a moment during the event to show the prop of the pavement and the scooter I am working with for the proposal of the roads as part of the platforms required to achieve the implementation of the autonomous vehicles. 

Particularly I should say that this event was one of the most challenging activities of SMARTI, but also, where I had learned more. Professor Luis Loria from Costa Rica was here and it was a kind of a bust for me to have him here, it is always really comforting to know that you have people who support and believe in you, professor José Pablo Aguiar (from Costa Rica) and professor Fabricio Leiva (also costarrican, but now working at NCAT) were also here, so I have not words to say as good was to see to them again! Lilly Xu, an ex-coworker from LanammeUCR came with them too.

SMARTI was also here! Maria (http://esr2smartietn.blogspot.com/) and Domenico (https://roadinnovations.blogspot.com/) did a great oral presentation of their work. Gaspare (https://comp2rheo.blogspot.com/) and Kostas (https://lcsa4transport.blogspot.com/) also did it with their posters!

MSCA fellows of the SAFER UP were also here! It was great to meet them!

Next EATA2021 will be in Vienna, so, stay tuned!

Keep in touch, 

ESR14-PLP.

4.7. Concepts: The Five Generations of Roads

Hi friends, 

For a long time I wanted to talk to you about the five generations of evolution of the roads, but as you had noticed, I had been really busy trying to get some advance in my project before starting my Secondment at IFSTTAR (Yes, I will start my Secondment on 24 of April at Nantes).

This week is Easter in Spain, so, I had some free time to write this. But before starting, I want to show you a couple of pictures of the “procesiones” here in Granada, a beautiful tradition Spanish people have.

I should say that I feel also really lucky to have the opportunity to learn about other culture. As it is well known, a lot of the Spanish traditions where bring to Latin-America, and in my country (Costa Rica) we have our Easter processions too, but those are already little different. Sometimes I feel like in home here in Spain, while in other times I continue learning a lot about the differences we have. Living in a foreign country is an experience that helps you to grow in so many different ways. 

Ok, coming back to the title, we can identify 5 generations of evolution of the infrastructure for roads: the Roman and rustic roads, the paved roads, the high capacity roads (highways), the sustainable roads (still state of art, but with some applications already reached in field) and more recently the smart roads (current state of art in roads research).

Why I wanted to talk to you about this? Well, because each one of the SMARTI projects are part of the research efforts frame inside this two lasts generations. In particular, my project is focused in the necessity to develop smart materials with the capacity to reproduce the ability of living beings to interact with the environment in which they are found (as for example self-repairing, interacting with others living beings and adapting their mechanical performance to the physical demands –mechanical, electromagnetic and thermals- of the environment in which they are found).

As I already explained you in my 3-minutes thesis, I am trying to transform the infrastructure of roads in an integral system of communication. I am working in giving to them a language to interact with us and the environment, I am working in understanding them (I am sorry, when we love what we do, we talk with love about it).

I guess I am going to stop here, let me leave more ideas for coming posts.

Keep in touch, 

ESR14-PLP.

9. 3 Minute Thesis UGR Llevel

Hi friends, 

"Being a PhD student is a process of resilience", at least professors Luis Loria and Jose Pablo Aguiar (from Costa Rica) say that. After a year and 5 months in this journey I can also support that phrase. So, since I have come all this way, Why not to try to have the whole experience of being a PhD? 

Then, this time, I want to tell you about my experience in the 3 minute thesis competition at the University of Granada level. All the past month and a half, PhD students from UGR whose wanted to participate in this event had the opportunity to attend to a communication course with the journalists: Carlos Centeno and Susana Escudero.

The course was related with topics such as scientific dissemination strategies, how to transform your research in a monologue, a brief introduction of the context of the 3 minute thesis competition, production of our own monologues, non-verbal language, stage presence in the scenario, the keyword value in speeches, intonation, experiences of previous 3 minute thesis winners at UGR leve, among others.

This 2018-19 edition counted with the participation of 19 PhD students from different knowledge areas. We had to present two times our speeches, the first one the past 20th of February, where I got the opportunity to pass to the final the last 14th of March.

Here I show you my speech (I am sorry, the video  has not the first phrase complete):

Here is the slide from the background: 

Just in case you want to read the whole message, here is the text:

Do you know who is Magneto from the X-men comic? This character who is a powerful mutant human with abilities to feel and control the magnetic field of the Earth and the bioelectric energy of living beings?

I am sure that by now you are all thinking this is just science fiction, but letting that aside and recognising that the writers of this genre actually put some scientific facts in their work, I want to tell you a little bit about a piece of technology I am developing for roads: mechanomutable roads.

When I call the roads mechanomutable, I am referring to the possibility of modifying the mechanical properties and functioning of the surface layer of the roads. I can do that by adding metallic materials to this layer and using magnetic fields to manipulate them. This is now starting to sound similar to the comic, isn't it? But here we are mutating the roads instead of humans and using technology instead of fictitious superpowers.

Why do we need this technology? Let me tell you about potential applications: imagen that you are in a city from future where the roads seem to be kind of alive and can send messages to your vehicle and you don’t need to drive it. Or that those roads can communicate with blind and deaf people and can integrate them more in the transportation system. Or maybe that those roads can feel the snow in their surface and they start to deice it. Or that they can know when a heavy truck is passing over them and they become stronger. Or even that they are smart enough to self-heal their own cracks or to recover the permanent deformations they have.

So, we are having smarter, safer and more efficient roads. Roads that are an multifunctional system of communication. Roads with an extra value for the investment we do to build them and the space they are using.

For these reasons, I am studying this technology’s performance by making specimens with different geometries and metallic material content and testing them under different magnetic fields, temperatures and loads. This will then enable me to come up with the best way to design and build a test track to validate the use of mechanomutable roads.

If we can use such advanced technology, who needs superpowers?

Finally, I should say that I felt really lucky, because professors Mayca Rubio and Fernando Moreno where supporting me and Raúl (other PhD student at LabIC.UGR, who also participated at the event) there. Also, professor Guillermo Iglesias (my professor from de Department of Physics) was there. It is really motivating when your professors take a little time of their busy agendas to support you in this kind of events.

From left to right: Mayca Rubio, Guillermo Iglesias, Raúl Tauste, Paulina Leiva and Fernando Moreno

Keep in touch, 

ESR 14-PLP.

8. Fourth Training Week: Multi-functional Transportation Infrastructures

Hi friends,

I guess this start of the year had been little busy for me and I had not had enough time to talk to you, but I am here again, trying to reorganize everything to not let you without news.  

This time I want to tell you about the fourth training week of SMARTI: “Multi-functional Transportation Infrastructures”. This training week was carry out in two different cities of France: Paris (from 21^st to 23^rd of January) and Nantes (24^th and 25^th of January) and it was organized by the supervisors and the fellows of SMARTI ETN whose are part of the IFSTTAR stuff.

The event was composed by two main parts. The first part was the Midterm Review of the SMARTI ETN program, where a panel of experts of the European Commission in charge of the Marie Skłodowska Curie Actions, were evaluating the SMARTI ETN program. In this part of the event, each fellow did a presentation of ten minutes about their projects, advances obtained, and dissemination and outreach activities. Additionally, fellows and supervisors participated in specific sessions with the representant of the European commission, where she was getting details and feedback about the advance of the work developed by the coordination of SMARTI and the general feeling each fellow has about our work in each one of our projects (it was nice to know that they are also taking care of us, other really good part of being a MSCA fellow).

The second part was a technical training to see the transportation infrastructures as multi-functional systems with the capacity to harvest energy, to monitor the solicitations that the external variables do to them or they do to the environment (modularity, links with the building, biodiversity, etc), among others discussed there. We received training about up to date techniques to monitor civil engineering structures in general, as for example experiences using nanosensors. Complementary, we could visit the Sense City of IFSTTAR in Paris and the Carrousel facilities (and Accelerated Pavement Testing facility, APT) at IFSTTAR in Nantes, which I should say that are impressive, I feel proud to had been there and learning just a little of the amazing work they are doing there.

Sense City at IFSTTAR, Paris

APT at IFSTTAR, Nantes

During this training week, we (the fellows) were also participating in a work team activity called INFRACKATON, which was directed to solve a real problem of potential multifunctional uses of transportation infrastructures of France. Actually a great activity to encourage us to work together and to participate in groups of opinion that can be influent in the sector (part of the leadership skills we should develop as MSCA fellows).

Keep in touch,

ESR14-PLP.