Project Advisor: Dr. Randall J. Charbeneau
Ph.D Student: Jaehak Jeong
MS Students: Emily Reeder, Andy Chan, Lauren Schneider, Julien Villard

Superelevation transitions are used to help balance centrifugal forces on vehicles moving through curved highway sections. At superelevation transitions, the outside lane cross slope is rotated from negative cross slope at normal crown conditions to positive cross slope at fully superelevated conditions. This change in cross slope alignment creates longer drainage path lengths for stormwater runoff and increased ponding depth of water on roadway surfaces.

This research addressed highway drainage issues at superelevation transitions through physical and mathematical modeling and focused on three major questions: 1) whether literature characterization of sheet fl ow mechanics provides appropriate models for application to highway drainage, 2) whether kinematic or diffusion wave models are applicable for simulation of highway runoff near superelevation transitions, and 3) how the pattern of pavement drainage at superelevation transitions is infl uenced by longitudinal grade. The underlying objective was to determine whether there is a minimum longitudinal grade below which stormwater ponding depth becomes excessive.

The summary of the project is presented at: 
ftp://ftp.dot.state.tx.us/pub/txdot-info/rti/psr/0-4875.pdf

The full report in pdf can be downloaded from: www.utexas.edu/research/ctr/pdf_reports/0_4875_1.pdf

Jaehak's dissertation: dissertation_jeong.pdf , dissertation_slides.pdf       
Peer reviewed journal article on physical modeling: GetPDFServlet.pdf