Dr. Wang received his academic and professional trainings in both construction management and pavement engineering. Therefore, his teaching and research experiences have covered a variety of topics in these two broad disciplines.
Under construction management, Dr. Wang is experienced in both building and roadway construction. His research projects and outcomes involve different topics related to project management. In recent years, his research interests in construction management are more focused on suitability issues of infrastructures. Example topics include carbon emissions in infrastructure construction and operation, life-cycle cost analysis, life-cycle assessment, life-cycle social impact analysis, and the interactions of infrastructures with environment, human society, and biodiversity. His most recent research endeavors are “nature-based solutions”—trying to incorporate nature-inspired and nature-friendly engineering solutions to traditional infrastructure construction and operation. You may refer to
Nature-based Infrastructure Solutions for more details.
Dr. Wang’s research on pavement engineering started with his PhD study on pavement management. Since then, he has conducted numerous pavement-related research projects, ranging from pavement structure design, quality control/quality assurance, pavement materials, to pavement maintenance and preservation. His most recent research endeavors in pavements are focused on three areas: (1) asphalt materials, (2) smart roads, and (3) gaseous and particulate pollutants in pavement construction and their health impacts. The most noteworthy research achievements under pavement materials is that Dr. Wang’s team developed advanced microscopy techniques to characterize asphalt at the molecular level and nanoscale. They discovered the unique morphologies of asphaltenes and found that nearly all engineering properties of asphalt binders can be well predicted by nanoscale binder characteristics. Funded by a competitive and prestigious Research Impact Fund, Dr. Wang’s research team has also been developing new solutions for smart roads, including pavement noise reduction through 3D-printing assisted texture optimization, road-based positioning for autonomous vehicles, solar roads, roads built with Modular Integrated Construction (MiC), and other innovative technologies. Asphalt pavement construction produces harmful gaseous and particulate pollutants. It is very challenging to quantitatively analyze the pollutants and assess their health impacts. His team has been continuously developing reliable analytical methods to analyze such pollutants. You may refer to
Pavement Research Highlights for more details.
