Center can accelerate recovery from storms
Improving the state’s Infrastructure is the focus of a new A&M operation that can collaborate with various industries
BRYAN — State officials heaped praise Wednesday on a new center at Texas A&M University aimed at making roads, pipelines and other critical systems operate better — and more cheaply — while also speeding up recovery time from storms.
“This is an investment,” Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said during the debut of the Center for Infrastructure Renewal, jointly operated by the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station and the Texas A&M Transportation Institute.
A&M is investing $5 million annually over the next 15 years in the center, the newest building on the university’s RELLIS campus. The building will house a first-of-its-kind collection of researchers equipped to track storms, test pipes and materials and move innovations from the computer screen to the lab to the marketplace via collaborations with various industries.
“We can accelerate how we get things out into the world,” center director Zachary Grasley said. “This doesn’t happen elsewhere.”
Lawmakers, who cham-
pioned the center in 2015 during the state’s budget process, lauded it as a sound investment for Texas.
“It will pay for itself 50 to 100 times,” state Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, said.
Texas faces a host of challenges to its infrastructure, at a moment when money for improvements and expansion is limited. The population is booming, with 15 million more Texans expected in the next 30 years. That means more strain on the pipelines and utilities supplying the state and the roads that allow goods and people to move.
At the same time, hurricanes often pound Texas, along with debilitating ice storms in the north and crippling droughts that crack roads and pipes.
The center aims to address those challenges by rethinking how roads are built to begin with, how they are maintained and how quickly they can be rebuilt.
Grasley said in a scenario like Hurricane Harvey, the public benefit of the research is extraordinary.
“We can make it more resilient before it happens, track damage and then rebuild more quickly,” he said. “Developing new infrastructure that lasts longer and costs less to construct is important.”
That ultimately lowers local costs, and it could likely accelerate how quickly people return to their homes, supporters said.
Researchers can also model storms like Harvey over and over again, assessing the anticipated damage. For an economic corridor such as the Houston Ship Channel, that could give companies and local officials insights in where to locate manpower and equipment and how best to shore up plants, pipelines and storage tanks.
Though incremental to people’s lives, the implications are enormous, Grasley said. Other than water, concrete is the most consumed material on Earth.
“You make small improvements in it, and you have billiondollar savings worldwide,” Grasley said.
Concrete that can cure in a matter of minutes as opposed to hours could also open roads more quickly, allowing drivers to consume less fuel and goods to travel more efficiently.
Though work on the center predates Houston’s three-year stretch of flooding and deadly storms, officials said the center’s mission has only expanded because of the renewed focus on infrastructure and resiliency statewide.
“The timing could not be better,” said Tommy Williams, senior adviser for fiscal affairs to Gov. Greg Abbott and a former Woodlands state senator.
The center is part of a $300 million investment that A&M plans for the RELLIS campus, previously used by the transportation institute and others, after its closing as Bryan Army Airfield.
A&M System Chancellor John Sharp, who has called for the campus to become a “living laboratory” for innovation, said partnerships with private companies that market innovations by A&M researchers combine the school’s goals with the need for corporate gains. The university, for example, receives royalties from concrete makers and companies that build guardrails and safety devices for highways.
Patrick cheered the public and private cooperation.
“I could see that being a big number,” he said of A&M’s royalties from products.
Sharp, however, joked he couldn’t pay the bills on royalties alone.
“We still need adequate state investment,” Sharp said, to laughter.