RPA Hosts Seminar for Tennessee DOT

41 District and Headquarters Engineers hear panel of Asphalt-Rubber Experts

March 19, Nashville, TN

At the request of Dennis Cook, Director of Operations, Tennessee Department of Transportation, the Rubber Pavements Association conducted a day long seminar for TDOT district Engineers and interested headquarters personnel. The seminar featured the following topics and presenters: The History of AsphaltRubber, Don Nielsen, former President, Arizona Refining Co. and Consultant for Cox Paving of Blanco, Texas; AsphaltRubber Formulation and Design, Joe Cano, former Engineering Supervisor, City of Phoenix, Arizona and current Technical Director, International Surfacing Systems, Chandler, Arizona; Asphalt-Rubber Gap-Graded Formulation and Design and Caltrans Equivalency table, Jack Van Kirk, Sr. Material and Testing Engineer, Caltrans; The Contractor's Perspective, Jay McQuillen, Granite Construction Co.; and Overview of Federal Research on Crumb Rubber Modified Hot Mix Asphalt, Dr. James R. Lundy, OSU, Principal Investigator, FHWA pooled fund study. RPA President Jeffrey R. Smith moderated the wrap up Q & A session and gave closing remarks. Dennis Cook said, "The seminar was extremely well received by our TDOT folks. The presenters were very knowledgeable and represented the top technical experts in the asphalt rubber area. Interaction with the private sector by way of seminars like this is essential if we are to continue our implementation of leading edge technology in Tennessee."

Talking Texas - Big State, Big Jobs RPA Directors Sidney Cox, Cox Paving, Blanco Texas (in stetson) and Larry Gilliland, Recycled Rubber Resources, Macon, MO discuss the upcoming 87,384 ton A R Hot Mix job located on SH 329 in the Odessa District which will utilize over 2,200,000 Ids of crumb rubber.

Dr. James Lundy, Ph. D, OSU, Principal Investigator for the FHWA Pooled Fund Study on Crumb Rubber Modified Asphalt, briefs Tennessee DOT engineers on the status of federally funded research.

Jack Van Kirk, P.E., Sr. Research Materials and Testing Engineer, Pavement Consulting Services branch of the California Department of Transportation shares his state's Asphalt-Rubber research and 20 year experiences with Tennessee.

Editor's Note

What is Asphalt-Rubber?

There are many processes for utilizing scrap tire rubber in asphalt. Only one is nationally defined as AsphaltRubber. ASTM DB-88 defines Asphalt-Rubber as follows:

"Asphalt-Rubber is a blend of asphalt cement, reclaimed tire rubber, and certain additives in which the rubber component is at least 15% by weight of the total blend and has reacted in the hot asphalt cement sufficiently to cause swelling of the rubber particles.

The RPA supports only those processes that have a long history of laboratory research and successful field performance. Asphalt-Rubber, also known as the "wet process" meets this criteria. Therefore, all technical information presented in this or other RPA publication, unless comparative, will be about the Asphalt-Rubber wet process.