The Auburn University asphalt and materials laboratory is located in the basement of the Harbert Engineering Center. This laboratory provides undergraduate and graduate students with exposure to hot mix asphalt (HMA) design, aggregate specification testing, assessments of fundamental materials properties, and hands-on experience with state-of-the-art automated field data collection.

HMA equipment

• Superpave gyratory compactor
• Maximum specific gravity
• Bulk specific gravity of compacted mixtures
• Indirect tensile load frame

Aggregates

• Semi-automated flat and elongated
• Digital microscopy
• Sand equivalent
• Methylene blue for clay content
• Uncompacted voids in fine or coarse aggregate
• Micro-deval abrasion
• LA Abrasion
• Compacted Aggregate Resistance (CAR)
• Instrotech CoreLok vacuum seal specific gravity

Fundamental material properties

• Dynamic modulus
• Resilient modulus
• Stress relaxation
• Creep

Mobile pavement survey laboratory

• Roadware ARAN van
• Ride quality assessment
• Prototype scanning laser system
• Texture measurements