PROFILES IN PRESERVATION Crack Sealants: Know When to Say When Editor's Note: This is the fifth of a continuing series of profiles of civil engineering students who are undertaking pavement preservation as a course of study. These students bring a different perspective of why a young civil engineer would pursue preservation study, and this issue focuses on graduate student Andrew Fried, whose work at North Carolina State University involves performance of crack sealants. WHAT GOT YOU INTERESTED IN PAVEMENT PRESERVATION? After taking a class on construction materials and beginning lab work under my current advisor, Dr. Cassie Castorena, I quickly became interested in different pavement preservation techniques. Navigating the lab as an undergraduate to assist both graduate and Ph.D. students with their research further exposed me to the diverse project types. It was throughout my time working with these diverse projects that lead me to pursue a graduate program in which I could continue working with pavement preservation. HOW IS YOUR RESEARCH RELATED TO PAVEMENT PRESERVATION? Currently, my research focuses on crack sealants. Specifically, my project considers the use of crack sealant and the maximum amount of sealant that can be applied before negatively impacting skid resistance to reduce wet weather accidents and enhance safety. Because crack sealant is effective for preventing moisture intrusion into cracks and slowing the deterioration of pavement, due to budgetary constraints, it's often overused in place of more costly rehabilitation treatments. The goal of my research is to examine different routes in North Carolina and quantify the impact that different patterns of crack sealant have on skid resistance, to ensure that this preservation method is not reducing the skid resistance to a point where the roads drop below the minimum limit required to ensure safety. Pavement preservation grad student Andrew Fried researching crack sealants in the field Spring 2018 | PAVEMENT PRESERVATION JOURNAL 39