Transportation Research and Education Center

The overall goal of this research is to improve the seismic safety and resiliency of highway bridges in the Pacific Northwest during earthquakes. Past earthquakes have shown that liquefaction-induced lateral spreading can be a major cause of collapse for pile foundations. Bridge engineers generally agree that pile foundations must be designed for: (a) lateral spreading loads caused by liquefaction of soils adjacent to piles, and (b) inertial loads during shaking resulting from the superstruct... Read More

This report is the third in a series of reports examining issues in Oregon related to changes in posted speed limits. In 2004, a comprehensive report, “Impacts and Issues Related to Proposed Changes in Oregon’s Interstate Speed Limits1 ,” was prepared. An update to the most important literature in the report was updated in 2017’s “Update to Issues Report for Interstate Speed Changes2 .” Readers are referred to these reports for a review of the scientific literature related to changing speed l... Read More