Dr. Puppala recently received two grants worth $119k and $36k from TxDOT. One project involves a pilot implementation using Geofoam material for repair of bridge approach slabs and adjoining roadway. Geofoam was used as an embankment fill material in a bridge situated on US 67 over SH 174 in Johnson County by TxDOT. This is an implementation project came from an earlier four year TxDOT research project 0-6022 on developing methods to mitigate bridge approach slab settlements. As a part of this 'Geofoam' project, settlement and pressure data will be collected from the already installed instrumentation system. The collected data will be analyzed to understand the behavior of the new material. Based on these modeling analyses, design and construction/maintenance guidelines will be provided to TxDOT for future use. This is a two year project; Dr. Xinbao Yu and Dr. Srinivas Chittoori are Co-Investigators of this project.

The second project focuses on improvement of construction quality control by using intelligent compaction technology for base and soil materials. Intelligent Compaction (IC) technique is a fast-developing technology for base and soil compaction quality control and acceptance. The primary objective of this project is to improve the process of accepting compacted materials to ensure quality, performance and durability using IC technology. This project will lead to the development of innovative and practical test protocols and specifications to improve the general quality and acceptance of compaction for subgrade, embankment, and base construction with available IC rollers or instrumented rollers. This is a one-year project in collaboration with UTEP (Dr. Nazarian); Dr. Chittoori and Dr. Hoyos are co-investigators for this project.