Asphalt Mix Compaction Modeling

completed

Phase I Technology Review, Model Selection. This project will identify mathematical models that could be applied to the compaction of hot-mix asphalt (HMA) and modify them to be suitable for modeling HMA compaction. Phase II will include: input determination, verification/calibration, sensitivity analysis/development of guidelines, and final report. This phase will identify parameters to be determined or estimated for the model selected in Phase I and perform a sensitivity study on the parameters. The intended outcomes of the project are to theoretically relate laboratory and field compaction; understand the important parameters in obtaining density without sacrificing performance; and improve the construction process to obtain the optimum in-place density. Researchers are collaborating with United States Department of Energy Argonne National Laboratory to utilize its Transportation Research and Analysis Computing Center (TRACC) cluster for computational capabilities.