Welcome Back Pavement Management RockStars!!!!!

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Blair: Well that certainly tells a story as far as outreach efforts go, like I’m always saying especially to Mr. LaHood (former United States Secretary of Transportation) and the likes of that, there’s not enough money to go around for training so the very fact that you sat in a one day seminar in an ARRA workshop and look this is living proof that you’ve taken it to the limit here, I think you’ve done more in the combination efforts than anybody I’ve ever seen, you know based on Sohila’s (Bemanian) experience in Nevada, I think you’ve brought the level up to the very top now this is a high part to reach so looking forward to seeing what you do with ongoing rut testing and FWD (falling weight deflectometer) perhaps if you work out some layer coefficients of the cold-in place mat based on what I’ve heard so far it sounds as if the cold-in place mat gave us some pretty positive results as far as a the rutting or I guess anti-rutting characteristics?

Brian: Well our main concern was rutting or destabilization, or however you want to look at it, in the early life of the project. Again these materials cure over time so they stiffen with time and

we had a concern to start with and so I mentioned that during the constructions there was a 2 inch overlay that was finally placed, well we had about a 3 month time window between when the recycling was finished and initial overlay was placed and then before that final overlay was placed so we went out and did manual rut measurements and in the right lane we did manage to do rut measurements, again manually in the right wheel path and I again saw on average probably about 15 hundredths of an inch, two tenths of an inch in that range and I calculated in those say 10 to 12 weeks that about 400 to 450,000 trucks had passed over (the CIR mat).

Blair: Gosh

Brian: So for a lot of projects that may be a three-year life, we saw that it in several weeks.

Blair: That’s amazing

Brian: So we thought that if we don’t have any issues at that point we’ve got good confidence were going to have a long lasting project.

Blair: Well kudos again to you Brian, thanks for taking the time to talk to us today and you are number one in my books!

Brian: Thank you

Blair: Thank you so much enjoy your afternoon!

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Now in the right corner dressed in black trunks, and wearing a constant frown on his face, and exuding negativity all around him wherever he walks, all the way from Somestatedotoffice on this planet, Ned the Naysayer!

Please note that the above is a fictitious person from a fictitious

location. However, below is an actual post from a reply to an online newspaper article somewhere in USA. Following therefore, is a perfect example of what type of venom you may hear someone spew in an online blog post, or the next time a group of Stringbenders gets together at a local conference or Commission meeting.

Transcript Begins:

Daddysays:

December 11, 2013 at 9:31 am

The reason there were no bids for resurfacing ***** Rd. is because of the heater scarification surface recycling that Sammy Stringbender and Sally Stringbender chose to do in spite of competent professional advice against it.

Heater scarification surface recycling involves heating the top 1″ of the existing pavement

structure to approximately 300 degrees by subjecting the surface to temperatures approaching 1000 degrees. Then the top 1/2″ – 1″ disturbed with spring loaded steel tines, a so-called rejuvenator is added and the pavement is re-screeded to a semi-smooth temporary wearing course. Since heater scarification surface recycling destroys the elastic properties of the asphalt cement (this is not mitigated by rejuvenator), the resulting pavement is brittle and prone to cracking and rutting immediately after paving.

Additionally there were no quality control measures in place to check for density, smoothness or mix consistency and there was no tack coat applied between the layers. As such, the recycled pavement is porous, has no structural value (can’t resist rutting, cracking or slippage) and must be resurfaced almost immediately or risk losing the whole pavement structure.

Here is where they really needed a hot-mix asphalt contractor because 1″ of hot produced asphalt does add to the pavement structure and may have provided some protection to the “recycled” mix. But – no hot-mix asphalt contractor wants to risk his or her reputation by paving over cracking, raveling, prematurely aged and virtually destroyed pavement.

At this point, Sammy Stringbender and Sally Stringbender realized they were in over their heads and had to reach out to the only paving contractor available to them, a microsurfacing contractor form Florida. Microsurfacing is essentially a mixture of sand and asphalt emulsion that is blended at ambient temperature and spread approximately 3/16” – 5”16” thick.

While this thin layer may temporarily seal the surface of the “recycled” asphalt, it is not a structural layer. Therefore, it cannot bridge the many deficiencies in the “recycled” mix. There were no quality control measures in place for the microsurfacing either and the result is ***** County paid for Type II micro-surfacing but got Type I micro-surfacing instead. The difference is that Type II has some aggregate particles the size of a pea and Type I is all sand.

Be aware that they are planning to apply parking lot sealer to our roads as well. This material is patented as HA5® by Holbrook Asphalt of Utah (another out-of-state contractor). The generic name is “High Density Mineral Bond” but don’t let the name fool you. It is nothing more than the stuff you see applied to the Hobby Lobby parking lot in Carrollton recently. It’s black and nothing more except slick when wet.

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Evil, that is what I say. Also, I have a sneaky suspicion that there may be a little foul play going on here. Did I just say that? You see, when our FHWA actually writes sustainability into their transportation bill, and pay to support the publishing of the Basic Asphalt Recycling Manual (BARM), and production of the NHI In-Place Asphalt Paving Technologies curriculum… and then on the other side of the coin you have some local DOT employees, and even some FHWA employees contradicting all the good that is going on for mankind, and our economy… one has to ask themselves; hmmm… why aren’t they saying anything good about all of the other tools in our proverbial toolbox?

Clearly by now I have shown enough proof in this book, and by the time you receive the free BONUS curriculum delivered to your inbox you have seen that The Three Legged Stool™ of pavement management is a proven system to resurrect our economy and save our crumbling roads.

I mean I just drove another 3,000 miles this week to get out to help one of our local agencies here in America. The Airstream Interstate bounced around so hard on the crumbling interstates along the journey, that the spare tire for the trailer that was hung securely on the inside wall of the Interstate Pro Series enclosed trailer fell off the wall!!!!

Funny how many things in that last paragraph refer to interstates?

If you decide after registering your book that you want more training material outside of what we are sending you, I would encourage you to register for IPMA™ Academy (http://www.ipmaacademy.com/).

But even if you don’t want to take 70 hours of online training and become APM™ Certified, you can find more training materials over at the IPMA™ Marketplace at http://drivingamericaforbetterroads.com/ .

Thank you for your time!

Blair