Advanced Asphalt Research
The Advanced Asphalt Research Laboratory (AARL) in Ohio University’s Russ College of Engineering and Technology is a world-class asphalt research center located on Ohio University’s Lancaster, Ohio campus in an existing 1600ft2 laboratory space, where it complements the Accelerated Pavement Load Facility (APLF). The AARL has a full complement of asphalt mix, binder, and aggregate testing equipment that enables a full characterization of AC pavements used in the APLF, on test roads, or at other locations.
In particular, the asphalt pavements in the APLF projects on Warm Mix Asphalt and Highly Modified Asphalt have been tested in the AARL, as have the perpetual pavement materials on US Route 23, WAY-30, and I86 in New York.
AC tests on the WAY-30 perpetual pavement specimens included: bulk specific gravity, maximum specific gravity, air void content, resilient modulus, rutting evaluation using an asphalt pavement analyzer, moisture susceptibility, creep, fatigue, and thermal stress restrained specimen test. Of particular note was the finding that the asphalt-binder-rich mix used in the perpetual pavement fatigue layer increased the number of cycles to failure due to fatigue cracking from about 20,000 load cycles to over 20,000,000 load cycles.