University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)

MD-13-SP909B4K

Tech Report

Maryland

Final report.

Maryland. State Highway Administration. Office of Policy & Research

NTL-SAFETY AND SECURITY-SAFETY AND SECURITY ; NTL-HIGHWAY/ROAD TRANSPORTATION-Construction and Maintenance ;

Over the past two decades the role of SHA has shifted from quality control (QC) of materials and

placement techniques to quality assurance (QA) and acceptance. The role of the Office of Materials

Technology (OMT) has been shifting towards assurance of material quality and oversight of contractor

quality control operations.

Since SHA deals with a variety of materials and construction processes there is a wide spectrum of

specifications and acceptance requirements. It was the objective of this study to identify typical material

QC/QA procedures and a) examine their conformance in relation to the federal requirements for defining

QA plans, Independent Assurance (IA) procedures, and material certification; b) identify potential

improvements to existing SHA QA plans, when necessary; c) assess product variability based on

production QC data, when available; and iv) evaluate risks related to material acceptance data when

applicable (i.e., when acceptance data are available). To address these objectives the research team had

several meetings with SHA engineers from the (1) Soils and Aggregates Division, (2) Concrete Technology

Division, and (3) Structural Materials and Coatings Division in order to identify the type of materials to

include in the study, and fine tune the specific steps of the research approach to follow.

PDF

SP909B4K

US Transportation Collection