Abatech

09/18/2025

Saw this old plant yesterday while in Chili - I was told the first in Chili - fantastic to see this old engineering 👍

09/12/2025

A few days in Puebla, Mexico discussing the rheology of asphalt materials with a great group of folks. Hosted by Ergon we discussed the latest parameters being considered for asphalt specifications and how to obtain these from Abatech’s RHEA software - https://www.abatech.com/rhea

08/15/2025

Great video - thank you Asphalt Institute for posting.

06/11/2025

Some photographs from the ASCE Pavements conference in Phoenix, Arizona. One of the highlights is listening to the Prof. Carl Monismith lecture - this year given by Prof. Claudia Zapata from ASU. Carl’s legacy is unique in the pavements industry, and I had the pleasure of knowing him well during the SHRP contracts and for many years afterwards as a mentor and also a friend.

06/02/2025

Enjoying a location on a beautiful campus on the outskirts of Nottingham, the University of Nottingham has been a pioneer in asphalt materials and pavement technology for over 65-years, with many great contributions over the years. I still enjoy reading thesis done in the late 1950s and early 1960s that sit on my book shelf in my office. Now with new technologies implemented the Nottingham Transportation Engineering Centre (NTEC) continues to make great strides into understanding materials and pavement performance. Many of the research ideas and work are published at https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/research/groups/ntec/index.aspx.

In the late 1980s/early 1990s Nottingham was a contributor and research institution participating in multiple SHRP asphalt projects that led to the development of Superpave. Since that time, we have been continuing this work with the development of the RHEA – rheology software and ideas that have led to improvements in both asphalt mixture and asphalt binder specifications in the USA and other countries around the world.

I had the pleasure to revisit the Nottingham group a couple of weeks back to update old colleagues/ friends and researchers in the group on the changes and new ideas that we have introduced into the software and analysis of asphalt binders and mixtures.

06/02/2025

May 15th – Asphalt Day – took me to The Institute of Asphalt Technology Annual Conference 2025. It was a fantastic event filled with insightful discussions on both the technical and business aspects of the asphalt industry. I’ve been a proud member of the IAT since 1983 – nearly 42 years – and it was a real pleasure to reconnect with long-standing colleagues and meet new faces as well. The conference included a visit to Wainwright’s asphalt plant – a thoroughly impressive facility and an excellent tour. Huge thanks to everyone involved in organizing this year’s event – a great venue, strong programme, and excellent social activities. Looking forward to the next one!

Congratulations to our new President Helen Bailey - wishing you a sucessful tenue over the next couple of years.

05/17/2025

May 15th this year saw me at an asphalt conference on what has become the International Asphalt Day. This year I joined old friends and colleagues in England for the The Institute of Asphalt Technology Annual Conference. It’s hard to believe that I have been a member for over 40-years. It’s a great organization for technology and training in our industry. Thanks to all at IAT for hosting a spectacular event.

05/15/2025

Yesterday we visited Wainwright’s asphalt plant near Bristol- great visit to the plant and understanding the setup in that location.

05/01/2025

Today we are in Massachusetts DOT discussing rheology and asphalt material behavior. Materials science impacts the performance of our pavements.

04/30/2025

A great couple of days in Orlando at the APWA conference and exposition.

Today we presented our recent work on the assessment of cold in-place recycled pavements using a mix of asphalt emulsion and cement. We had tested this construction with the Falling Weight Deflectometer during two build seasons, and then used a back-calculation method with the DAPS software to determine the foundation stiffness and calculate the effective pavement modulus. This in turn led to the computation of the structural layer coefficients of the as-built pavements which was found to exceed the number used in the design by a comfortable margin. This is always an aspiration of the design and construction processes. The advantage of testing with the FWD is significant, in which a large amount of data is rapidly obtained and this enables assessment of the statistics is a reasonable and robust manner.

The process also enabled us to evaluate a remixing of materials after a heavy rainfall event.

Thanks to collaborators in putting this presentation together - Jason Parker, P.E. and Kris Shane and teams at Ardaman & Associates, Asphalt Paving Systems Inc. and Abatech for helping us develop this work.

Today we presented at the APWA Florida Chapter Conference and Exposition our recent work on the assessment of cold in-place recycled pavements using a mix of asphalt emulsion and cement. We had tested this construction with the Falling Weight Deflectometer during two build seasons, and then used a b...

02/21/2025

A free teaching/demo version of RHEA is available today. The version has 30 data sets built in, including binders from the SHRP program, some highly modified products and some industry standards. Many functions associated with time temperature shifting are available and this is an excellent teaching tool (now further improved) that we have been using for years on our Rheobit courses.

This is now available as a free download – so if you are teaching rheology of asphalt materials – this will be a great tool to have!
We will in the next few weeks be supplementing this with teaching slides – in a PowerPoint format and text that will describe materials and analysis options. Much of the detail of the software is given in the user manual that can be downloaded.

The critical links are as follows:

Link to download setup EXE file - https://abatech.sharefile.com/d-s473fc7676f764aa7931c63f68b82cb11

Link to download setup EXE file within a ZIP file - https://abatech.sharefile.com/d-se54d9f1ee3a74e548832096b491fc97e

User manual - https://abatech.sharefile.com/d-sf2d98a7112284dfea6c351a09da98506

12/15/2024

Great week at the Asphalt Institute annual meeting. Congratulations to Bob Kluttz and Pete Grass, on joining the AI honor role. Two greats in the world of asphalt materials.

Great to catch up with many friends.