CONFERENCE TOPICS

The conference will deal with the latest ideas regarding the design, construction, operation and maintenance of transport infrastructure. The contributions will be divided into sessions focused on the following main topics:

Low-energy and high-performance materials
Roads, bridges and tunnels with increased durability and extended service life
Advanced technologies and smart solutions for railways
Systems of management, durability assessment and life cycle cost analysis in transport infrastructure
Environment protection and green transport infrastructure
Safety, security and diagnostics of structures

English will be the official language of the BESTInfra 2017.

Training School of COST TU 1406 (Quality specifications for roadway bridges, standardization at a European level) will be organized in Prague in connection with the conference from 25th to 29th September 2017. Capacity will be 30 students, participants will be provided with ECTS credits. More details will be announced later.

KEYNOTES

Keynote lectures will be given by:

Prof. Joan Ramon Casas (Polytechnic University of Catalonia - BarcelonaTech)

Keynote Lecture: Standardization of quality control plans for highway bridges in Europe: COST Action TU 1406
Prof. Casas is a professor of bridge engineering at the School of Civil Engineering, Polytechnic University of Catalonia. His main fields of research are bridge safety and durability, reliability-based inspection and management of concrete bridges, life-cycle of bridges, concrete bridge design and construction. He is the Secretary General of IABMAS (International Association for Bridge Maintenance and Safety) since 1999. He has been visiting professor in several universities in South America, Europe, India and Japan. He is a member of many technical committees, editor of several renowned international journals.
Dr. Muhammad Rafiq Kakar (Swiss Federal Laboratories for Material Science and Technology – EMPA)

Keynote Lecture: Typical technical status, technology improvements, requirements and needs of roads in developing countries shown on a case study
Dr. Kakar is currently working in Swiss Federal Laboratories for Material Science and Technology, (EMPA), Dübendorf, Switzerland. He began his career as a Highway Engineer at the National Highway Authority (NHA), Pakistan, in 2007. Before joining EMPA, he served as Deputy Director at Highway Research and Training Center (HRTC), NHA, Burhan, Pakistan. He was awarded with a doctoral degree in 2015 for his contributing research work in warm mix asphalt at Universiti Sains Malaysia, an area of research that he still continue to focus on. He has worked on different national highway projects and served as highway maintenance engineer at Coastal highway, Pakistan.
Dr. Cliff Nicholls (TRL Limited, UK)

Keynote lecture: Durability of recycled and lower temperature asphalts
Dr. Nicholls is on a standby contract with TRL after recently retiring from full-time employment as a Senior Academy Fellow. His research was into pavement materials, particularly asphalt surface course mixtures and their durability, recyclability and/or applicability at lower temperatures. He has also worked on high-friction surfacings, road markings and concrete reinstatements. He has been involved in a series of European projects as well as national ones and for 15 years was convenor of the CEN technical group for asphalt tests.
Dr. Edward Stewart (Birmingham Centre for Railway Research and Education)

Keynote Lecture: Future Technologies to Improve Railway Infrastructure Performance: Applications to High Speed Rail, Main Line Railways and Metros
Dr. Stewart is a researcher and lecturer in the Birmingham Centre for Railway Research and Education. He works extensively with the railway industry and academia in Britain and EU. Edd’s research interests are centred on instrumentation development and condition monitoring in the railway domain. Projects include: vehicle under-frame inspection and condition monitoring, energy monitoring and loss analysis, digital processing for non-destructive testing techniques, infrastructure condition monitoring, winter performance, and architectures for real time processing and event detection.