Balanced Mix Design

BMD, modified asphalt discussion from 2024 AMAP President at Tampa’s NPE

As the industry investigates balanced mix design (BMD), as well as environmental product declarations (EPDs), LaCroix said recycled plastics could play a role in those conversations.

Increasing the use of RAP continues to face limitations across the country. However, experts from Ohio, Texas and Michigan offer a message of hope with the advent of BMD.

In early June 2021, Staker Parson executed an innovative test strip at the port of entry, paving a single 6-inch-thick lift of highly polymer-modified asphalt with 1 percent air voids.

In September 2021, Coulson Excavating Company Inc., placed an innovative new mix known in Colorado as BR-ST (bituminous rich, ST ⅜ minus gradation) on a 4-mile section of State Highway 85.

There’s more happening in the world of quality control/quality assurance than finding the most expedient way to implement balanced mix design-favored testing protocol. Let’s take a look at what equipment manufacturers and lab service providers have to offer.

Preliminary testing with the mobile WLB 10 S laboratory plant from Wirtgen Groupenables foamed bitumen quality to be precisely determined in the lab prior to the start of construction by offering one-to-one simulation of the cold recycling process in the lab.