AI presents at Transportation Research Board annual meeting

Over 11,000 registrants attended the 86th Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board (TRB) in Washington D.C., January 21-25, 2007. There were over 3,000 scheduled presentations during the nearly 600 TRB sessions that addressed topics of interest to policy makers, practitioners and researchers from government, industry and academia. A CD-ROM that contains a Compendium of the papers presented during the meeting is available at www.TRB.org.

The Asphalt Institute staff had a significant presence at TRB. AI President Pete Grass, along with AI’s Field Engineers, participated in the technical sessions, committee meetings and specialty workshops held throughout the five days. AI’s Mark Buncher co-authored two technical papers presented this year: 1) Expected Service Life of HMA Pavements in LTPP Database and 2) Quantification of Effect of Polymer-Modified Asphalt on Flexible Pavement Performance.

Both papers described unique analytical approaches to quantify the outstanding long-term performance of asphalt roads using agency provided pavement distress data from various controlled test sections. Several AI engineers are Regular Members to the various TRB committees (AFK 10, AFK 20, AFK 40, AFH 60, etc.) related to asphalt pavement.

The Asphalt Institute again co-hosted a hospitality suite with the Association of Modified Asphalt Producers (AMAP) on Monday and Tuesday night of TRB. Hundreds of invited friends and guests visited the suite between the afternoon and evening sessions of both days.