Asphalt Warranty Core Group Meeting

Friday, January 31, 2003: 8:30 AM to 4:00 PM

Conference Room

State Materials Research Park

Gainesville, Florida

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ATTENDANCE:

Ron McNamara State Pavement Evaluation Office

Bouzid Choubane State Pavement Evaluation Office

Gale Page State Materials Office

Jim Musselman State Materials Office

Nour Nazef State Materials Office

Brian Blanchard State Construction Office

David Sadler State Construction Office

David Wang State Construction Office

Duane Brautigam State Specification Office

Greg Schiess Federal Highway Administration

Bob Burleson FTBA

Jim Warren ACAF

Ken Murphy Asphalt Tech. Inc.

1) Introduction: The meeting started with general introductions of the agenda items.

2) Review the minutes of previous meeting: Previous meeting minutes were approved.

3) General briefing about the agreement made between FTBA and FDOT about Asphalt Guarantee with a period of 3 years: Brian Blanchard briefed the group about the 3-yr Materials and Workmanship (M & W) CGAP concept:

· A Warranty Board will be formed to handle disputes. There will be a pool of potential candidates from Industry, FDOT & Academia that have a specific background in asphalt.

· The five-year CGAP that is currently being used on Design/Build projects will go away – there will only be the three - year M&W CGAP.

· Discussed issue with perception of “The pavement is guaranteed – we don’t need any inspection on the job”

- We still will need to inspect.

- However, we do need to show increased staffing efficiency with the CQC specifications.

- M&W CGAP fits in well with the change in staffing – for example if there is a roving verification technician that is only at a plant part time, the M & W CGAP will help to prevent someone “tinkering” with the asphalt mix.

· Need a new name for the Three-Year Materials and Workmanship Contractor Guaranteed Asphalt Pavement (TYMWCGAP). Maybe something with less letters.

· Duane Brautigam requested the Group to present a final version of the Three-Year Materials and Workmanship Contractor Guaranteed Asphalt Pavement specifications to the State Specification Office not later than July 1, 2003.

4) Statistical Analysis of 3-year pavement performance for each Project Category Greg Schiess presented performance data from 3-yr old Interstate Superpave projects:

· Threshold criteria were discussed – data seems to indicate that the threshold value for rutting should be set at approximately 0.25 inch.

· Decision made to draft the specification using 0.25 inch & follow-up with analysis of additional projects – if necessary the value can be changed later.

Action: Musselman, Prasad, Murphy & Dietrich to provide a list of early Superpave jobs to McNamara by 2/17/03. He’ll compile performance history & forward to Schiess. He’ll analyze data.

· Ride data on Interstate projects indicate that setting the threshold value for a RN ≥ 3.70 would work.

· Also discussed Non-Interstate Superpave project rutting data from 3-yr old jobs – It was decided that 0.25 inch will probably work.

· Ride data – agreed that there should not be any CGAP ride criteria on jobs with a design speed less than 50 mph. For projects with 50 mph & greater, the threshold value is 3.70.

5) Modify Section 338 Table 338-1 and Table 338-2 (5-year guarantee period) to new Tables for a guarantee period of 3 years on Interstate Highway System. Discussed Table 338-1

· Need to change cracking to a maximum of 30 feet per LOT.

· Need to add bleeding as a deficiency to mainline.

· Table 338-2 okay as is.

· Basic process on repairs: During the 3-year guarantee period, District would identify problem either through a “flag” in the Pavement Condition Survey (PCS) or else through a visual observation. First step would be to have the District Bituminous Engineer make a preliminary review & determine if problem is or is not a CGAP issue. If it was a CGAP issue, the deficiency would be forwarded to the Contractor for repair. Contractor either makes repair or gets the DRB involved.

6) Develop new Tables and modify the Section 338 for a guarantee period of 3 years on State Highway System. Handled previously.

7) How to handle the Design of OGFC in the CGAP specification? This issue goes away with 3-yr CGAP.

8) Identify the type of the projects and/or the type of pavement design that the 3-year guarantee requirements shall not apply to. Discussion on projects that are exceptions & how they’ll get handled – do we add language to the specification, provide guidance to designers, etc. Decision was made to identify exceptions & let the State Specifications Office sort out how they get handled.

Action: Wang, Dietrich & Musselman will work on implementation matrix.

9) Which Office will be the best to monitor the pavement performance during the guaranteed period? Construction or Maintenance?

Action: Brian Blanchard will work with the other Highway Operations Offices (Maintenance, Materials, Construction) to determine who will handle this.

10) Discuss the impact to the existing Pavement Evaluation Program that will be induced by the requirements with 3-year guarantee period for all asphalt projects. Due to the limitation of manpower and Laser Profiler Testing equipment in State Pavement Evaluation Office, the 3-year CGAP program will add more workload that is beyond what the Office can handle.

Action: Ananth will work with Bouzid and Tom Malerk to resolve this issue.

11) How to conduct the Final Pavement Condition Survey for each asphalt guaranteed project? In order to establish a standard procedure for the implementation of the Three-Year Materials and Workmanship Contractor Guaranteed Asphalt specification, it was concluded that a flowchart will be used to explain the process.

Action: David Sadler will work with David Wang to develop a flowchart for the Group to review at next meeting.

12) Propose a scheme of the Automated Tracking System for the implementation of the CGAP specifications. Due to the time constraint, the meeting was adjourned at 3:45 pm and this item will be discussed in the next meeting.

Next meeting – March 6, 2003 (Thursday), from 8:30 am to 4:00 pm at the State Materials Research Park in Gainesville, Florida.