Asphalt concrete

"Blacktop" redirects here. For other uses, see Blacktop (disambiguation).
Asphalt batch mix plant
A machine laying asphalt concrete, fed from a dump truck

Asphalt concrete (commonly called asphalt,[1] blacktop, or pavement in North America, and tarmac or bitumen macadam in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland) is a composite material commonly used to surface roads, parking lots, airports, and the core of embankment dams.[2] Asphalt mixtures have been used in pavement construction since the beginning of the twentieth century.[3] It consists of mineral aggregate bound together with bitumen (a substance also independently known as asphalt), laid in layers, and compacted.

The process was refined and enhanced by Belgian-American inventor Edward De Smedt.[4] Edgar Purnell Hooley further enhanced the process in the UK where the term tar macadam, shortened to tarmac was coined, after the name of his companyTar Macadam (Purnell Hooley's Patent) Syndicate Limited derived from the combination of tar and Macadam gravel composite mixtures. [5]

The terms asphalt (or asphaltic) concrete, bituminous asphalt concrete, and bituminous mixture are typically used only in engineering and construction documents, which define concrete as any composite material composed of mineral aggregate adhered with a binder. The abbreviation, AC, is sometimes used for asphalt concrete but can also denote asphalt content or asphalt cement, referring to the liquid asphalt portion of the composite material.

  1. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 2011. p. 106. ISBN 978-0-547-04101-8.
  2. ^ "Asphalt concrete cores for embankment dams". International Water Power and Dam Construction. Archived from the original on 7 July 2012. Retrieved 3 April 2011.
  3. ^ Polaczyk, Pawel; Huang, Baoshan; Shu, Xiang; Gong, Hongren (September 2019). "Investigation into Locking Point of Asphalt Mixtures Utilizing Superpave and Marshall Compactors". Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering. 31 (9): 04019188. doi:10.1061/(ASCE)MT.1943-5533.0002839. S2CID 197635732.
  4. ^ Reid, Carlton (2015). Roads Were Not Built for Cars: How Cyclists Were the First to Push for Good Roads & Became the Pioneers of Motoring. Island Press. p. 120. ISBN 978-1-61091-689-9.
  5. ^ "The man who invented Tarmac". BBC. 24 December 2016.