The Advanced Materials for Transportation Infrastructures Laboratory (MIT) is part of the Materials and Infrastructures Department (MAST).

The laboratory studies the materials used in linear urban and interurban transportation infrastructure. These include not only roads but also railways, tramways and airport pavements, etc. The laboratory studies bituminous, hydraulic and biosourced materials.

It mobilises its own expertise in order to improve materials, but it also collaborates very actively with other laboratories at Université Gustave Eiffel. This integrated approach enables the university to offer a comprehensive response to the challenges facing modern transport infrastructure : design, durability, skid resistance, noise, life cycle assessment, energy use and haversting, etc.

 Its expertise covers 3 areas:

• Mechanical, rheological and physicochemical behaviour
• Modelling and experimentation
• Upscalling from the laboratory, to a demonstrator and then to a site

 The organisation of research, and more generally that of all development, investigative, expert appraisal and standardisation activities, is built around three themes. These are part of an approach that is geared  towards sustainable development and the circular economy :

• the durability of  materials;
• the circular economy with alternative and innovative binders;
• materials for innovative uses.

The laboratory’s research activities aim to tackle the following societal challenges :

•  preserving existing infrastructures by better controlling the mechanisms that influence the durability of materials while considering the role of climate change;
• Conserving natural resources and combating global warming by optimising the recyclability of construction materials, developing materials that consume less energy and working towards the replacement of petroleum products (due to availability and health-related issues);
•  Promoting the development of innovative structures by responding to new societal demands (energy harvesting, cooling pavements, use of asphalt in railway track beds, etc.)