In September 2024, a high-performance asphalt test section was placed on Milepost 146 of the westbound lanes of I-76, better known as the Pennsylvania Turnpike—the nation’s oldest turnpike. Designed to address chronic cracking issues on aging concrete pavement, the project introduced a reflective crack relief asphalt interlayer (RCRAI) reinforced with aramid fiber designed by Blankenship Asphalt Tech & Training (BATT).

With our recent expansion, we have space to add more equipment to increase our capacity and variety for binder testing. These upgrades mean faster turnaround times, more robust testing capabilities, and even more ways to support the development of high-performing asphalt materials tailored to our customers’ project needs.

A custom asphalt mix design from BATT gave the Taylor County Airport in Kentucky a new lease on life. BATT applied its asphalt engineering expertise to design an easy-install asphalt pavement interlayer that could be produced in plant with existing paving equipment and saved the airport money by eliminating expensive third-party interlayer contractors.

In August 2023, BATT’s team of asphalt experts wrapped up a project that combined an in-depth pavement condition analysis with a unique blend of advanced materials and advanced asphalt quality assurance (QA) testing to create a strategy that could well become the standard-bearer for changing best practices in asphalt pavements.

In 2020, BATT tested a new asphalt mix design for the City of Louisville that offered the potential to recycle a far greater percentage of RAP using an EPD-listed reinforcement agent. Two years later, the asphalt engineering services provided by BATT have yielded impressive results.

In 2022, Palmer Engineering called on the asphalt experts at BATT to assess a general aviation airport in Madisonville, KY. Its 15-year-old runway needed to address a condition of high cracking and raveling. BATT applied its asphalt testing resources and know-how to not only solve the problem but stay within the budget as well.

Asphalt engineering and asphalt testing services from BATT enabled Surface Tech to put its aramid reinforcement product to a rigorous test at the prestigious NCAT institution in Opelika, AL.

BATT supplied civil engineering support to help BASF test a modification technology designed to improve adhesion of the asphalt mix by cross-linking the liquid binder. The asphalt binder modification technology, called “B2Last” brings a new type of science to asphalt paving technology..

The Lexington/Fayette Urban County Government (LFUCG) was searching for pavement solutions that would provide improved sustainability, and the asphalt experts at BATT had a proven solution to offer. BATT worked with a new combination of additives that not only extended pavement life, but also offered the opportunity to include a higher percentage of recycled asphalt pavement (RAP) to the asphalt mix.

.As a premier laboratory for asphalt testing, BATT assisted the creators of Uberbinder, a promising new solution for lowering CO2 in asphalt paving using polymerized sulfur. After examining the fundamentals of how Uberbinder bonds, BATT testing found it works extremely well as an asphalt replacement binder and has great potential to help the asphalt industry build sustainable, flexible pavements while lowering CO2