Asphalt Binders

The asphalt paving industry today faces many challenges including an aging infrastructure, reduced agency funding, rising costs, and the need for improved environmental stewardship and sustainability. Road Science offers innovative and cost-effective system technology solutions to build better-performing, longer-lasting, environmentally responsible and safer roads.

Road Science’s system solutions encompass a wide range of pavement rehabilitation and construction applications to help with these challenges. Road Science offers strain tolerant asphalt binders for surface courses and bridge deck overlays that significantly improve fatigue resistance in thin overlay applications, retaining rut resistance while reducing potential cracking.

One of the many problems facing today’s highway engineers is reflective cracking of hot mix asphalt (HMA) over concrete and composite pavements. The cracks lead to serious problems as they allow moisture to infiltrate and deteriorate the underlying pavement structure. The result is loss of pavement structural strength, and in most cases, a decrease in the pavement’s ride comfort. Road Science answers the need for protecting overlaid pavements with a strain tolerant reflective crack relief interlayer, designed to be impermeable and flexible, preventing moisture from infiltrating the pavement and significantly delaying reflective cracking in the overlay.

Using conventional HMA equipment and procedures, construction is faster and easier than other crack relief methods, minimizing user delays. The system extends paving dollars, while helping preserve the existing pavement structure. Each interlayer can be engineered to the specific strain tolerance and rut resistance needed for a particular roadway. Pavements constructed with this system provide far better rut resistance and greater reduction in reflective cracking compared to conventional HMA or other modified asphalt binder types.