Technical Projects

During the Spring 2009 semester, the Pavement Enterprise project activities all focused on competitions. The semester started with an internal bid competition for the first three weeks in which all students participated. The competition bid project was the site work for the construction of the new Hancock Michigan Middle School. For the remaining 11 weeks of the semester, three teams competed against each other in a internal aggregate characterization competition while a fourth team competed in an external competition sponsored by the Wisconsin Asphalt Paving Association.

The internal aggregate characterization competition focused on the use of the acid insoluble residue (AIR or IR) test as a method of characterizing the polishing resistance of carbonate aggregates. Teams were provided with three carbonates from Michigan and asked to evaluate the IR test as a procedure for predicting the polish resistance as determined by the Michigan DOT Aggregate Wear Index (AWI). Teams were provided with several IR test specifications, several key journal articles on the topic of aggregate polishing, and an extensive historical database of MDOT test results from AWI and IR testing. They were encouraged to seek out other reference material in the literature to better understand the issue, and to find local experts in topics like statistics and mineralogy. Each team was provided access to a laboratory space with a hood for performing the test, and adequate resources to build an IR test apparatus. Weekly meeting were held with Project Managers to assess progress and see if additional guidance was needed.

The IR competition teams are competing for approximately $7,000 in scholarship funding that has been provided by Vulcan Materials. The areas of judging to determine a competition winner included 1) their final report, 2) their presentation to our Advisory Board, 3) and the resentation of their results using a poster and web page. Project reports are available on their respective web sites.

 Websites for the Internal IR Competition Teams

• Team 1 - Rocks Are Fun
• Team 2 - Rock Solid
• Team 3 - AIR Force 1
• The External WAPA competition team is competing against four other universities in a competition developed by the Wisconsin Asphalt Paving Association. This competition is an outgrowth from a similar competition previously sponsored by the National Asphalt Paving Association. This year's WAPA competition includes asphalt mix design, pavement design, and construction management. While the WAPA team, is primarily competing against teams in Wisconsin, they are also participating against our other three internal competition teams in the presentation of their results (web page and poster). For the WAPA webpage go to - WAPA Team.