CE 432: Highway Laboratory

The materials used for roadway construction have progressed with time, dating back to the early days of the Roman Empire. Advancements in methods with which these materials are characterized and applied to pavement structural design has accompanied this advancement in materials.There are two major types of pavement surfaces - Portland cement concrete (PCC) and hot-mix asphalt (HMA). A flexible, or asphalt, or Tarmac pavement typically consists of three or four layers. For a four layer flexible pavement, there is a surface course, base course, and subbase course constructed over a compacted, natural soil subgrade. When building a three layer flexible pavement, the subbase layer is not used and the base course is placed directly on the natural subgrade. This subject describes of the physical characteristics and quality control tests for Highway Materials and Asphalt Mix Design.