New Mexico Specifying 90% WMA Projects
May 02, 2014
New Mexico DOT issued the 2014 edition of The Standard Specifications for Highway and Bridge Construction. In it they define warm mix temperature as asphalt mix produced at 275F or less. When utilizing warm mix asphalt, ambient paving temperatures can be dropped 20F for open graded friction courses (OGFC) and 15F for dense graded mixes. New Mexico DOT specifies warm mix asphalt in approximately 90% of the projects let so far this year.
NMDOT also commissioned The University of New Mexico to study the warm mix projects that have been completed to date. Researchers conducted a visual scan of completed warm mix projects. Asphalt Ambassador Mike O’Leary joined the team for a trip that evaluated five projects. Preliminary results were that chemical warm mix projects looked good while foam did not have as good of a visual showing.
Author: Mike O'Leary
