Imen Zaabar

Imen Zaabar

Imen Zaabar

Professor of Instruction

Biography

Interests:

Dr. Zaabar's research interests are in the areas of pavement response and performance modeling, dynamics of pavements and truck-pavement interaction, pavement surface roughness, infrastructure sustainability and Surface Properties - Vehicle Interaction, pavement preservation, and characterization of asphalt concrete mixtures. Recent research has been focused on (i) models for estimating the effect of pavement surface condition on vehicle operating costs, (ii) infrastructure sustainability, (iii) Surface Properties - Vehicle Interaction,  (iv) assessment of pavement acceptance criteria, (v) the effect of heavy trucks with large axle groups on pavement performance, (vi) the development of roughness diagnosis tools for PMS application, and (vii) dynamic backcalculation of flexible and rigid pavement parameters

Recent Research:

  • USDOT DTRT13-G-UTC44: K. Chatti, “University Transportation Center for Highway Pavement Preservation”, Project sponsored by the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology (OST-R).
  • Performance-Related Specifications for Pavement Preservation Treatments”, National Cooperative Highway Research Program of the National Academies (NCHRP 10-82A).
  • Enhanced Analysis of Data for Design and Possible Improvements to FWD Testing, FHWA DTFH61-11-C-00026, Federal Highway Administration.
  • Relationships Between Laboratory-Measured and Field-Derived Properties of Pavement Layers, FHWA - DTFH61-09-C-00007, Federal Highway Administration (with Cornell University)
  • Models for Estimating the Effects of Pavement Condition on Vehicle Operating Costs, NCHRP 1-45, National Cooperative Highway Research Program, National Academies.
  • Assessment of Pavement Acceptance Criteria and Quantifying its As-constructed Material and Structural Properties, Michigan Department of Transportation.
  • Effect of Michigan Multi-Axle Trucks on Pavement Distress and Profile, Michigan Department of Transportation.
  • Development of a Simple Diagnosis Tool for Detecting Localized Roughness Features”, Michigan Department of Transportation.
Research Area
Awards
Best Paper award by a young professional (2014), International Symposium on Pavement LCA, UC Davis
Outstanding Ph.D. student Fellowship (2010)
Institute of Transportation Engineers Michigan section Scholarship (2009)
International Road Federation (IRF) Fellow (2009)
Education
Michigan State University: Ph.D., Civil Engineering - Pavements and Materials
Publications
“Estimating Vehicle Operating Costs Due To Pavement Surface Conditions”, I. Zaabar and K.Chatti, Transportation Research Records: Journal of Transportation Research Board, 2014.
“Backcalculation Of Asphalt Concrete Modulus Master Curve From Field Measured Falling Weight Deflectometer Data Using A New Time Domain Viscoelastic Dynamic Solution And Genetic Algorithm”, I. Zaabar, K.Chatti, H. S. Lee, and N. Lajnef, Transportation Research Records: Journal of Transportation Research Board, 2014 (In print).
“A New Mechanistic-Empirical Approach for Estimating the Effect of Roughness on Vehicle Durability”, I. Zaabar and K.Chatti, Transportation Research Records: Journal of Transportation Research Board, Issue 2227, 2011, pp. 180-188.
“Calibration of HDM4 Models for Estimating the Effect of Pavement Roughness on Fuel Consumption for US Conditions”, I. Zaabar and K.Chatti, Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, Issue 2155, 2010, pp. 105-116.
"Effect of Pavement Surface Conditions on Sustainable Transport", K. Chatti and I. Zaabar; Climate Change, Energy, Sustainability and Pavements; Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, pp173-246, 2014.
"Investigation of the Relationship between Dynamic Axle Load, Roughness and Fuel Consumption”, I. Zaabar and K.Chatti, Proceedings of the International Symposium on Pavement LCA, UC Davis, California, October 14-16 2014.
“Impact of Roughness Features on Damage to Transported Goods”, I. Zaabar and K.Chatti, 12th International Conference on Heavy Vehicle Transportation Technology, Stockholm, Sweden, 16-19 September 2012.
“Identification of Localized Roughness Features and Their Impact on Vehicle Durability”, I. Zaabar and K.Chatti, 11th International Conference on Heavy Vehicle Transportation Technology, Melbourne, Australia, 14-17 March 2010.
“Development of a Simple Diagnosis Tool for Detecting Localized Roughness Features in Concrete Pavement”, K. Chatti, I. Zaabar, H. S. Lee, 9th International Conference on Concrete Pavements (ISCP), San Francisco, USA, August 17-21, 2008.
“Reasoning about cryptographic protocols in observational theories”, I. Zaabar, and N. Berregeb, Proceedings of the 14th Annual IEEE International Conference and Workshops on the Engineering of Computer-Based Systems (ECBS'07), Tulsa, USA, March, 2006.