Weekly, among the most popular new content to appear on Civil Engineering Source are the Technical Notes, and no wonder – ASCE members enjoy reading about new developments that build upon past understanding to make what they create better, stronger, more resilient, and sustainable.
Tapping new papers published in ASCE’s many technical journals, notes span everything from the theoretical to the practical, in every discipline. They cover advancements that could take time to come to fruition to detailed guidance a civil engineer with the requisite background can apply immediately. While they are indeed technical, notes begin with a readily accessible opening describing the paper and what makes it significant, before sharing the paper’s abstract.
From a near-year’s worth of weekly technical notes, these are the top five of 2025, in order of number of downloads the papers received in the weeks after the notes were published in the Source, from most downloaded to fifth.
1. Evaluating the potential of drones to monitor road conditions (Mar. 11)
Aerial drone usage has exploded with recent technological advances. Use cases include medical supply delivery, insurance risk assessment, and various forms of infrastructure monitoring. The U.S. transportation industry has been using drones for some roadway condition monitoring, an important economic priority, as the American Trucking Association estimates that 72% of U.S. freight is moved by trucks. Combine that with the ASCE 2021 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure identifying that 43% of our public roadways are in poor or mediocre condition. Researchers wanted to understand the current body of knowledge covering the usage of drones for roadway condition monitoring and how that might help address some of these ongoing issues.
Read the technical note on “Drones for Road Condition Monitoring: Applications and Benefits” in the Journal of Transportation Engineering, Part B: Pavements, Vol. 151, No. 1.
2. Predict pavement conditions on a budget using datasets and AI (Apr. 1)
Pavement sure takes a beating. If it’s not road traffic, it’s the weather, particularly extreme weather intensified by climate change. Heat expands the pavement and cold contracts it, leading to poor road conditions. The ability to predict pavement conditions has a big impact on maintenance. However, collecting data, using sensors, and conducting lab experiments can be costly, and even with every resource, most communities can only measure a small fraction of road segments annually. Most communities also lack access to a complete set of data, including traffic activities, pavement type, and pavement condition ratings, or PCRs. Without a full picture, it is hard to predict the status of an entire road network. Researchers explored using artificial intelligence along with openly available datasets to address these challenges in nine U.S. communities.
Read the technical note on “Pavement Condition Prediction for Communities: A Low-Cost, Ubiquitous, and Network-Wide Approach,” in the Journal of Infrastructure Systems, Vol. 31, No. 1.
3. First-ever pedestrian bridge inspection process proposed (June 17)
Pedestrian bridges have evolved from merely functional to works of art that often integrate with a city’s design plan. With improved appearance come more complex structural design elements and construction challenges. More complicated fabrications make ensuring bridge integrity more significant. Surprisingly, pedestrian bridges have no standard in-service inspection criteria, often leaving inspectors to resort to implementing highway bridge standards.
Pedestrian bridges without a formal inspection process typically default to every 24 months, which does not account for design characteristics or environmental impacts that could benefit from more frequent reviews. Following highway bridge standards does not account for pedestrian-specific safety issues, including surface conditions, railings, and vibration. Researchers used a risk-based inspection method to determine optimal inspection intervals for pedestrian bridges.
Read the technical note on “Proposed Criteria for the In-Service Inspection of Pedestrian Bridges” in the Journal of Bridge Engineering, Vol. 30, Issue 6.
4. Three concrete repair mortars compared for adherence, durability (Mar. 18)
The choice to rehabilitate aging infrastructure rather than start new builds shifts costs to maintenance and repair. Being integral to most projects, concrete ages, erodes, and cracks. To combat this the materials industry has developed repair mortars and identified minimum requirements for strength, compatibility with the substrate, and protection of the structure. With many different retrofitting materials available, what combinations work best to repair and ensure continued sustainability? Researchers explored how different properties affect the durability of repair mortars.
Read the technical note on “Durable Performance of Cement-Based Repair Mortars for Retrofitting and Protection Applications” in the Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering, Vol. 37, No. 3.
5. Gain an appreciation for the finer things in life – soil particles, that is (Sept. 3)
Understanding soil characteristics can help determine how the ground will respond under certain loads. The finer fraction – the smaller, finer particles (e.g., fine sand, silt, and clay) – plays a large role in how soil will behave. When erosion occurs, it is usually those finer particles that are affected, and so there is no visible change; however, the shear strength of the soil has been compromised. Some examples of consequent failure include dam collapse, ground subsidence, and sinkholes. So how can engineers prevent this problem? What is the right mix of soils?
Read the technical note on “Critical Examination of Internal Stability Criteria for Granular Soils and Development of a Coupled PSD-CSD Approach” for the Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering, Vol. 151, No. 9.
Read all technical notes from 2025 and years past at Civil Engineering Source.
