Tom Scullion, PE

TTI Senior Research Engineer
Program Manager

Education

• M.B.A., Specializing in MIS Development, Texas A & M University, 1984
• M.S., Materials Science, University of Sheffield, U.K., 1975
• B.S., Physics & Mathematics, University of Sheffield, U.K., 1973

Short Biography

Mr. Tom Scullion is a Regents Fellow and the program manager of the Flexible Pavement Program at TTI and is a registered professional engineer in the state of Texas. He has been involved with pavement research for 35 years and his current interests are in the areas of pavement rehabilitation, overlay design, non-destructive testing, and the development and implementation of new technologies for real-time quality control testing. As head of the Flexible Pavement Program he manages eight full-time researchers, several experienced technicians and graduate and undergraduate students. His program is active in many areas of pavement research including quality control measurements; soil stabilization; full depth reclamation; rubblization of concrete pavements; perpetual pavement design; forensic engineering; mechanistic pavement design and overlay design. The goal of the Flexible Pavement program is to conduct innovative multi-disciplinary research which provides the funding agency with products which can readily be implemented.

Mr. Scullion is an expert in using nondestructive testing to identify defects in engineering structures. He routinely uses both Falling Weight Deflectometers to measure structural strength and Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) to identify and locate subsurface defects. Studies completed in Texas, on in-service pavements, demonstrated the ability of high speed air coupled GPR to accurately measure layer thicknesses, detect damage in surface and base layers, and detect areas of low density within asphalt layers. Mr. Scullion supervised the development of GPR interpretation software and also trained the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) on where and how to use this technology. This technology has been used routinely since 2004 by TxDOT engineers to optimize pavement rehabilitation projects.

He has recently worked within Texas to develop and implement new tools for designing, constructing and monitoring both soils stabilization and full depth reclamation projects. Several major advances have been implemented in Texas as a result of these studies including new tools for measuring sulfate content in soils and the use of micro-cracking to minimize shrinkage cracking damage with cement treated bases. In the past 5 years Mr. Scullion has conducted studies for all the major suppliers of stabilizers including the Portland Cement Association (PCA), Lime Association and asphalt emulsion suppliers. He has recently developed the next generation of pavement design tools for the PCA to incorporate soil cement bases in pavement design. This software is currently being implemented by the PCA.

In the area of hot-mix asphalt design he has proposed the use of the balanced-mix design to aid in selecting the optimum asphalt content. Many of the innovations developed by the Flexible Pavements Program have been incorporated into TxDOT specifications. He has a solid working relationship with DOTs and has completed several major forensic investigations to identify the cause of premature pavement failures and the optimal repair options. By combining advanced non-destructive testing results with focused field validation coring, he has successfully identified problems with flexible, jointed and continuously reinforced concrete pavements in Texas. He has also played a lead role in the implementation of deflection-based pavement design systems. The MODULUS 6 backcalculation program was developed by TTI; it is widely used around the world for processing FWD data. Mr. Scullion was the lead investigator in the development of TxDOT?s flexible pavement design program (FPS 21), which is the recommended design systems for all flexible pavement designs in Texas.

He regularly trains on pavement design, soil stabilization, nondestructive testing and construction techniques for TxDOT, the Lime Association and PCA. He also teaches classes on highway materials for the National Highway Institute and methods of rehabilitating flexible pavements for TxDOT.

Mr. Scullion is an active member of the Transportation Research Board where he is former chairman of Committee A2B05 "Strength and Deformation of Materials." Mr. Scullion was awarded the HB Zachary Researcher of the Year award in 1996 for his important research in the areas of pavement design and nondestructive testing. He also received awards from the Texas DOT for innovative research in 2000, 2001 and 2003, and was awarded the Trinity Materials Senior Research of the Year award in 2005. He recently received Texas A&M University's 2011 Regents Fellow Award, the highest award for researchers in the university system.