Alabama

National Center for Asphalt Technology

The National Center for Asphalt Technology is a cooperative venture between the National Asphalt Pavement Association’s (NAPA) Research and Education Foundation and Auburn University. Industry’s financial endowment supports Auburn’s facilities and faculty in improving the performance of HMA pavements through research, education, and information services. The Pavement Test Track is one example of NCAT’s ongoing practical research program.

The NCAT Pavement Test Track was originally constructed as a result of interest and support from state Departments of Transportation (DOTs) who shared a concern for building and preserving safe, sustainable, resilient, and cost-effective pavement infrastructure. Track research operations began in the summer of 2000.

Forty-six 200-ft test sections were subjected to 10 million equivalent single axle loadings (ESALs) of heavy truck traffic through December of 2002. Test sections were rebuilt in 2003, 2006, 2009, 2012, 2015, and 2018 with 10 million ESALs applied within each 3-year research cycle. NCAT began formally partnering with the Minnesota Road Research Project (MnROAD) in 2015 to execute nationally relevant research in instrumented pavement thickness design, mix performance testing, and pavement preservation.

Positive experiences with implementable findings that reduce the life cycle cost of flexible pavements and facilitate rapid deployment of sustainable technologies have made this research an outstanding investment for numerous state DOTs, who pool their resources to share the cost of construction, operations, and research in a cooperative manner. The summer 2021 rebuild is the starting point for the eighth research cycle, with many high reward research options available for potential sponsors. NCAT is again partnering with MnROAD in the 2021 research cycle to execute a pavement performance experiment with nationwide implementation impact.