Dallas N. Little, Ph.D., P.E.

Little, Dallas

Senior Research Fellow

Materials and Pavements Division - CE/TTI, Room 603E
Texas A&M Transportation Institute
The Texas A&M University System
3135 TAMU
College Station, TX 77843-3135
ph. (979) 845-9847 Ext. 59847 · fax (979) 845-9761
d-little@tamu.edu

Short Biography

Education and Past Experience

Professor Little received his bachelor of science in civil engineering degree from the United States Air Force Academy in 1970. He received a master-of-science degree in civil engineering from the University of Illinois in 1973 and a doctor of philosophy in civil engineering from Texas A&M University in 1979. He worked as an Air Force civil engineer from 1970 until 1976. During that time he served as chief of construction management (Craig Air Force Base, Alabama), station engineer (Cold Bay, Alaska), and instructor and assistant professor of civil engineering at the United States Air Force Academy.

Professor Little has worked for Texas A&M University from 1976 to the present. At Texas A&M he has served as head of the materials and pavements division of the Texas A&M Transportation Institute and assistant agency director for the Institute. He also served as head of the Transportation and Materials Division of the Zachry Department of Civil Engineering at Texas A&M University.

Current Duties

Professor Little currently is holder of the E. B. Snead endowed chair in Transportation Engineering in the Zachry Department of Civil Engineering of the Look College of Engineering at Texas A&M University. He teaches graduate courses in the areas of asphalt technology, chemical soil and aggregate stabilization, aggregate technology, micromechanics, and structural pavement design. He teaches an undergraduate course for the Look College of Engineering in Materials Engineering designed for civil, chemical, mechanical, petroleum, industrial, and aerospace engineers. He has chaired the graduate committees of a number of nationally renowned former students in the area of asphalt technology, materials engineering, structural pavement design, chemical soil and aggregate stabilization and transportation materials.

Professor Little is senior research fellow at the Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI), and was the first researcher named to that position at TTI. In this position, he is responsible for the development of new research initiatives with government and private entities. He is currently the principal investigator for Texas A&M University?s contribution to the Asphalt Research Consortium (ARC). The ARC is funded through the Federal Highway Administration to provide fundamental research in asphalt technology that will directly improve the ability to predict and impact the performance of the nation?s asphalt pavement infrastructure. The ARC is a consortium of three universities, a national research institute and a nationally renowned private laboratory. The ARC funding is $27 million over a five year period. While the ARC?s efforts are directed by the FHWA, the ARC is advised by three national Expert Task Groups comprised of stakeholders from academia, government and private industry. In 2007 Professor Little helped establish, together with Professor Eyad Masad, a collaborative effort to improve the performance of asphalt composites through surface chemistry, adhesion, and microsurface characteristics. The collaboration with Nottingham University and Imperial College of London is funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council of the United Kingdom. The collaborative effort will run concurrently with the ARC research.

Professor Little is also associate director of the International Center for Aggregates Research (ICAR), which is a joint center between Texas A&M University and the University of Texas at Austin. ICAR is funded by an endowment from the aggregates industry. As associate director of ICAR, Little is responsible for the development of research initiatives that address the needs of the aggregates industry; the transfer of technology on aggregates research through annual seminars, newsletters and research summaries; and development of educational products on the topics of aggregates, which address industry needs.

Research Interests

Professor Little's research has concentrated in the following areas during the last five years: 1) develop improved asphalt-aggregate mixture design and analysis procedures; 2) develop constitutive models explaining the behavior and performance of asphalt-aggregate mixtures as well as unbound aggregate mixtures; 3) evaluate the effects of additives or modifiers (including fibers and fillers) on the performance of asphalt binders and asphalt mixtures; 4) evaluate new and innovative asphalt-aggregate systems such as large stone mixtures and stone-mastic mixtures; 5) explain the mechanism of micro-damage and micro-damage healing in asphalt concrete pavements and apply this mechanism to reduce fracture fatigue and permanent deformation damage; 6) develop improved methods to predict the rutting susceptibility of asphalt concrete pavement surfaces; 7) develop plasticized sulfur systems to be used as substitutes for asphalt cement and Portland cement; 8) develop fracture mechanics based techniques to explain the behavior of stabilized aggregate systems and the benefits of aggregates with low levels of chemical stabilization; 9) develop improved mixture design methods to assure durability of lime and lime-fly ash stabilized soil and aggregate systems; 10) develop a thermodynamics-based approach to determine the potential for development of deleterious chemical reactions occurring between calcium-based chemical stabilizers and soil and/or aggregate systems; 11) improve designs of pozzolanically stabilized mixtures to meet the structural demands of airport pavement; 12) determine how to use increased levels of fine aggregate in asphalt concrete and Portland cement concrete mixtures; 13) establish rheological and multifunctional effects of calcium hydroxide in bitumen and asphalt mixtures; 14) develop methods to assess asphalt-aggregate bond strength and durability (in the presence of moisture) based on surface energy measurements of aggregates, asphalts, and mastics; 15) evaluate the level and rate of damage in asphalt mastics as affected by fillers and polymer modification; 16) develop image analysis techniques to evaluate the effect of shape, texture, and angularity characteristics on the performance of both unbound and bound aggregate systems, and 17) develop a wet weather aggregate characterization system to insure appropriate surface-tire interaction and skid properties.

Other Activities

Professor Little has served as a materials engineering and pavement design consultant on major new construction and rehabilitation projects at the Denver (Colorado) International Airport; Interstate 70 west of Denver, Colorado; Hobby (Houston, Texas) Airport; Bush Intercontinental Airport (Houston, Texas); Schipol International Airport (The Netherlands); Balad Air Base, Baghdad, Iraq; U.S. Highway 550 in New Mexico; Texas Toll Road 130 by-pass of Interstate 35; and several other major highway and airport design projects. He has served as consultant for numerous companies and agencies including Koch Industries, DuPont, Exxon, Shell, Mobil, ALCOA, Burlington Resources, Martin-Marietta, the City and County of Denver, City of Houston (Houston Airport Services), Advanced Asphalt Technologies, U. S. Air Force, the U. S. Department of Justice, the Colorado Department of Transportation, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Carter and Burgess, Kellogg Brown & Root, Halliburton, Klotz and Associates, Turner, Collie and Braden, PBS&J, Lhoist Group (Brussels, Belgium), Carmeuse, Graymont, Clogannine, Ltd. (Ireland), Professional Services Industries (PSI), DMJM Aviation, Texas Attorney General, Michigan Attorney General, Missouri Attorney General, Utah Attorney General, Nebraska Attorney General, the King Ranch, Queensland Cement Limited (Brisbane, Australia), Australian Stabilization Association, VicRoads, Melbourne, Australia, MainRoads, Brisbane, Australia and Road and Traffic Authority, Sydney, Australia, the National Lime Association (Ancade ) of Spain and associated geotechnical labs, the Institute of Engineers of Ireland, the Federal University of Ceara (Fortaleza, Brazil), O?Keefe Stabilization and Remediation Contractors of London, England, Liberty Mutual Surety, Fireman?s Fund Insurance, and many other nationally recognized entities. He recently served on a task force for the evaluation of the safety and performance highways in Greece.

Professor Little was recently recognized by Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR) for his ?extraordinary efforts? in support of KBR?s CENTCOM IDIQ projects at Balad Air Force Base in Iraq for which KBR received the CENTCOM award for ?Best Construction Contractor Excellence Award?.

Publications and Committee Activities

Professor Little has authored approximately 325 significant reports (including about 130 journal articles) and has given approximately 300 invited lectures on technical subjects including lectures in 42 states and 14 countries. He served two terms as chair of the Transportation Research Boards (TRB'S) Committee A2D04, "Characterization of Bituminous Mixtures to Meet Structural Requirements. He served as secretary of TRB committee A2J03, "Soil-Cement Stabilization" and Committee A2J01, "Chemical Stabilization of Soils." He served as chair of the Expert Task Group monitoring Strategic Highway Research Program (SHRP) contract A-003a, ?development of Asphalt Mixture Tests to Validate SHRP Asphalt Binder Tests and Specifications?. He served as a member of the Federal Highway Administrations Expert Task Group on ?Accelerated Testing of Asphalt Concrete Pavements? and is a member of the NCHRP panels 9-19 and 4-23 on the ?Development of Pavement Performance Models?. He is recently completed an assignment as a member of the TRB Superpave Committee. From 1992 through the present, Little has served as a member of the Expert Task Group for the FHWA project entitled ?Fundamental Properties of Asphalts and Modified Asphalts?. He also served as a member of the Blue Ribbon Review Committee for Bayex Corporation on use of geogrids to retard reflection cracking in asphalt overlays. This work was conducted at the Delft University in the Netherlands.

Professor Little is currently co-chair of the Federal Highway Administration?s Expert Task Group on Fundamental Properties and Modeling of Asphalt Materials. He is a member of the Transportation Research Board (National Research Council) team to update the State of the Art Report on soil and aggregate stabilization with hydrated lime and edited the Transportation Research Board?s millennium report on soil stabilization with lime, Portland cement and fly ash. He is a member of the advisory board of the Texas Department of Transportation?s Accelerated Testing Program, and presently serves on as a member of the Scientific Committee representing North America for the Treatment and Recycling of Engineering Materials for the Transportation Infrastructure (TREMTI). The TREMTI Congress will be held in Paris, France, in October of 2005. He is also currently serving on the Scientific Committee for the International Conference on Advanced Characterization of Pavement and Soil Engineering Materials to be held in Athens, Greece, in June of 2007.

He is a member of a number of other professional societies and is a fellow in the American Society of Civil Engineers. He has been awarded the J.W. Emmons award by the Association of Asphalt Paving Technologists (AAPT) three times as a contributing author of the outstanding paper in asphalt technology (for 1981, 1998, and 2006). He received the Trinity Industries/C. V. Wootan Career Achievement Award in 1999 for Research Leadership in Materials Engineering. Recently several other technical papers co-authored by Professor Little have received recognition. These include two papers that were nominated for the K. B. Woods award by the Design and Construction Committee of the Transportation Research Board. These were, ?Effect of Moisture on Material Properties and Fracture Resistance of Asphalt Mixtures?, 2005, and ?Ettringite Formation in Lime-Treated Soils: Establishing Thermodynamic Foundations for Engineering Practice?, 2006. He co-author of a paper entitled, ?Sensitivity of HMA Performance to Aggregate Shape Measured Using Conventional Image Analysis Methods?, which received the ?Best Scientific Paper Award? from the International Journal of Road Materials and Pavement Design in 2005. Professor Little recently completed a term as associate editor of the American Society of Civil Engineer?s Journal of Materials Engineering, and is on the editorial board of the Journal of Applied Asphalt Binder Technology, University of Calgary.

Professor Little has served or is serving as principal or co-principal investigator on over $20 million of contract and/or grant research. Sponsors for this research include: the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the National Science Foundation, the Federal Highway Administration, Strategic Highway Research Program, National Cooperative Highway Research Program, Texas State Department of Transportation, Florida Department of Transportation, and the Aggregates Foundation for Technology, esearch and Education and private industry.

Education

  • Ph.D., Civil Engineering, Texas A & M University, 1979.
  • M.S., Civil Engineering, University of Illinois, 1973.
  • B.S.C.E., Civil Engineering, United States Air Force Academy, 1970.

Experience

  • Senior Research Fellow, Materials and Pavements Division, Texas A&M Transportation Institute, June 1998 - Present.
  • E.B. Snead Endowed Chair, Civil Engineering, Texas A & M University, 2001 - Present.
  • Professor of Civil Engineering, Texas A&M University, 1987.
  • Division Head, Materials and Transportation, Texas A&M University, 2001 - 2004.
  • Kelleher Professor of Civil Engineering, Texas A&M University, 1994 - 2001.
  • Kelleher Professor of Civil Engineering and Area Leader for Materials Engineering, Texas A&M University, 1991 - 1994.
  • Visiting Professor of Civil Engineering, United States Air Force Academy, June 1987 - August 1987.
  • Associate Professor of Civil Engineering, Texas A&M University, September 1983 - August 1987.
  • Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering, Texas A&M University, September 1979 - August 1983.
  • Lecturer, Texas A&M University, September 1976 - September 1978.
  • Assistant Professor, United States Air Force Academy, June 1976 - August 1976.
  • Instructor, United States Air Force Academy, June 1974 - June 1976.

Professional Registration

Professional Engineer in Mississippi, Registration No. 6664.

Professional Engineer in Texas, Registration No. 40392.

Professional Engineer in Colorado, Registration No. 12998.

Affiliations

  • Fellow, American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).
  • Member, Phi Kappa Phi National Honor Society.
  • Association of Asphalt Paving Technologists (AAPT).
  • National Membership Chair, Transportation Research Board (TRB).
  • American Society for Testing and Materials.
  • Sigma Xi.

Honors & Awards

Best Scientific Paper Award, International Journal of Road Materials and Pavement Design, 2004, for the paper, Sensitivity of HMA Performance to Aggregate Shape Measured Using Conventional Image Analysis Methods.

Selected Publications

J.E. Howson, A. Bhasin, E.A. Masad, R.L. Lytton, D.N. Little. Database of Measure Values. 5-4524-01-P1. Texas Transportation Institute, College Station, TX. 2009.