Purdue University civil engineers have developed a fully automated, portable system to estimate the volume of stockpiles of bulk supplies like salt and other materials used in industrial, highway and agricultural applications. The Indiana Department of Transportation funded the research through its Joint Transportation Research Program.
Stockpile management is important in roadway maintenance, which uses salt to deice roads to keep traffic flowing safely, and in other applications. Government agencies are increasingly interested in tracking stockpiles to assess their environmental impact, including effects on roadside vegetation and the salinity of surface water. Salt and sand also may affect pavement durability.
Salt monitoring and reporting technology, or SMART, was created by Ayman Habib, the Thomas A. Page Professor of Civil Engineering, and Darcy Bullock, the Lyles Family Professor of Civil Engineering, both from Purdue’s Lyles School of Civil Engineering.
