Meet the Asphalt Team-Technical Expertise

Meet Scott Nazar, Technical Manager for Forta Corporation Asphalt Division.  Scott leads and manages the asphalt team in developing, testing and marketing FORTA-FI® fibers for the use by agencies, municipalities and state asphalt pavement projects.

Scott brings 18 years of experience in transportation, quality control, and civil engineering. He has shared his expertise in state of the art knowledge of asphalt pavement in regard to construction management and highway transportation. His prior positions as Section Chief for Materials Innovation Management for the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, Scott brings valuable experience to Forta Corporation Asphalt Division.

If you are interested in learning more about Fortafied asphalt to build tougher, safer and more fiscally responsible roadways please contact Scott Nazar at 1-800-245-0306.

For More Information, Please Visit: www.forta-fi.com

Catching Up On Street Paving And Maintenance With FORTA-FI®

When choosing to use a FORTA-FI® high-tensile strength fiber for asphalt mix, city engineers, city administrators and road superintendents have specific reasons for opting for a fiber-reinforced pavement design.  Over the past four years an increasing number of municipalities have included FORTA-FI® HMA and WMA fibers as a part of their yearly paving programs.  

The decision to use the three dimensional advantages of fiber may be due to concerns with a particular problem roadway, which failed to live up to its predicted design life with a traditional mix.  Sometimes FORTA-FI® is specified to add strength to thinner overlay sections, in mill-and fill projects ranging from 2 1/2” - 1” (or even thinner ultra-thin placements).  Cities and towns have increased the number of streets that can be rehabilitated each year by milling-off less asphalt on the roadway and replacing the surface section with a FORTA-FI® fiber overlay.  

This allows them to get a new fiber-reinforced driving surface on more streets annually, while gradually decreasing the annual backlog of ‘past due’ paving projects.  Our patented aramid/polyolefin fiber blend can also help the durability of mixes used for roadway and parking lot patching in pot hole and utility maintenance situations, and FORTA-FI® PAT can be added to cold patch or hot patch asphalt to help ensure a successful repair.

FORTA-FI® fiber is added at the asphalt production facility at the simple dosage rate of 1 pound per 1 ton of asphalt.  It is a simple process to make a fiber-reinforced mix in both batch and drum plants by using the 1 pound bags of FORTA-FI® HMA-WMA-PAT fibers.  Manually adding the fiber is a great option for smaller roadway, parking lot, and trail paving jobs, and automated fiber-feeding equipment is available for larger projects that require more fiber-reinforced asphalt mix.  Since FORTA-FI® has been used in hundreds of asphalt applications throughout the country, your local asphalt producer may have already be familiar with the product or possibly used it in a project in your area.

For more information, please visit: www.forta-fi.com

FORTAfied® Lunch and Learns

Forta-Fi® was recenting used in a state roadway project. The 70-22, 4.75mm, 3/4" thinlay comparing traditional mix vs. FORTAfied® mix. Compaction on non-reinforced asphalt after the first roller, 88-89. Compaction on the FORTAfied® mix after the first roller, 90-91.

Hungry for more information?  Schedule a lunch seminar to learn about how using asphalt fibers in your next project can reduce processing, reduce labor, reduce time and reduce logistics thereby, translating to reduced project costs.

FORTA Corporation will provide a review of 30+ years of research on FORTA-FI ®.  The seminar will provide information on testing that has been completed at University, Private Sector and International Levels.  Additional information will be provided on asphalt reduction and adding longevity to projects.

FORTAfied ® asphalt is strong asphalt, and builds tougher roads.  Today, more than ever, using time and material resources responsibly is everyone’s goal.  FORTA-FI® is capable of reinforcing all asphalt mixtures allowing for either less asphalt or longer asphalt life. 

Please contact 1-800-245-0306 ext 127 to schedule your next educational seminar.

For more information, please visit: www.forta-fi.com

Asphalt Fiber Testing: Cost Effective Quality Roadways

Many State Department of Transportations (DOT) are looking for more cost effective pavement materials without compromising the quality of the pavement life-cycle, as well as extending the life-cycle of the pavement. State DOTs look at testing to determine if pavement materials meet the criteria to be approved for usage in their roadways. The National Center for Asphalt Technology (NCAT) researches asphalt products in areas of structural design, construction methods, materials and testing, performance, pavement preservation, pavement rehabilitation and highway safety.

In July of 2012, NCAT conducted a field study on accelerated performance testing (APT) and FORTA-FI^® which was placed on section E9B-1. The NCAT testing track sponsored a two-year cycle where trafficking was applied by using a fleet of heavily loaded tractor-trailer rigs to provide the equivalent of 10 million; 18,000-pound single-axle loads (EASLs). NCAT also applied a design lifetime of truck traffic averaging ten to fifteen years within the two-year period.

Each rig in the five-truck fleet ran an average of 680 miles per day in order to achieve a real world traffic simulation. During the trafficking phase, performance of the test sections were studied and FORTA-FI® has passed with flying colors. Stay tuned as the Alabama DOT is planning on leaving FORTA®’s test section in place for another 10 million EASLs to further study the benefits of utilizing FORTA-FI® in the asphalt mix.

FORTA-FI® Reinforcement for Parking Lots

Parking lot construction and maintenance costs are a critical cost center for property owners. These surfaces do more than just provide employees and patrons a place to park their cars and trucks, they are also an access point to and from retail, residential and office building structures.  Parking lot surfaces need to be a safe place for cars, trucks, and especially pedestrian traffic to enter and exit properties. Cracking, rutting, heaving and potholes are asphalt material issues that are not just unsightly, they can be hazardous to both foot and vehicle traffic!

FORTA-FI® high-tensile strength fiber can help to extend the service life of parking lots by providing three-dimensional fiber reinforcement to the asphalt mix.  Millions of aramid fibers distributed throughout the pavement function to help keep cracks from forming, and once they do occur (as the asphalt binder becomes more brittle through weathering and age) the fibers can assist in keeping them from spreading.  When used in the base, intermediate and/or surface course of the parking lot, the FORTA-FI® fiber effect works to prolong the usable life of the fiber-reinforced asphalt layer. Additionally, routine maintenance treatments like surface and crack sealing can be performed as usual to keep the parking lot in good condition.

FORTA-FI® fiber will not fix poor base, moisture or structural issues that have previously caused parking areas to prematurely fail.  These types of problems need to be addressed prior to any type of asphalt placement.  However, fiber-reinforcing your asphalt mix with FORTA-FI® can make a good paving project perform even better over time!  Consider specifying FORTA-FI® fiber for your next parking lot, and see how Going Longer...Going Stronger with fiber can help extend the service life of asphalt placements!

For more information, please visit: www.forta-fi.com

In the news: Asphalt Fibers Being Tested to Prevent Potholes in Pennsylvania

Please view the video on a recent news report from March 2015 on Forta-Fi®.  PennDOT has been testing Forta-Fi® asphalt fibers in Bucks County for prevention of potholes.

For more information, please visit: www.forta-fi.com

ADDING FORTA-FI® FIBERS AT THE PRODUCTION PLANT

It’s nothing new, asphalt producers are routinely being asked to incorporate newly developed mix additives and liquid modifications into their production methods. Warm mix foaming systems, waxes, crumb rubber, recycled shingles, RAP, fractionalized recycled material and synthetic fibers are used every day around the globe in an attempt to help maximize asphalt performance. FORTA Corporation has developed a variety of ways to introduce their high-tensile strength fiber, FORTA-FI®, into both drum and batch plants during the production process.

FORTA-FI® fiber can be packaged in easy-to-use one pound (1 lb.) plastic bags, and added directly ‘by-the-bag’ into a batch plant, pug mill or at the drum plant through the RAP collar. The dosage rate for the fiber is 1 pound per 1 ton of asphalt mix, (with no change to the job mix formula) which makes calculating the amount of FORTA-FI® being added simple and easy to track over the course of production.

Manually adding the fiber is a great way to fiber-reinforce smaller jobs like driveways, parking lots, traffic signal intersections and repair sections. Fiber may be dosed by-hand into batch plants using compressed air systems, such as the Big Shot® feeder. The Big Shot is easily installed, using 8-inch, schedule 40 PVC. This fiber transport system was designed with toughness in mind, using the most rugged and efficient materials. Most importantly the Big Shot was designed to improve safety while adding fibers into your Asphalt plant. This transport system uses air (requiring 95 psi and 25 cfm) to easily deliver your 1 lb. fibers into your RAP collar.

The “Little Shot” compressed air system may also be used to manually introduce loose fiber directly into the drum plant. The “Little Shot” uses air  (w/95 psi air pressure) to deliver fiber in 1 lb. increments into the RAP collar or external pug mill. Rigid PVC pipe or flexible tubing may be used to move the fiber vertically from the ground into the production plant.

Specially designed mobile automated systems produced by Hi-Tech Asphalt Solutions are used to inject fiber into drum plants for larger production runs. These computer controlled feeders use plant electric power and their own internal air system to effectively dose accurate amounts of fiber for larger tonnage FORTA-FI® projects. The operator controls the fiber introduction rate remotely so it feeds at the correct plant production speed, and these rates are recorded on an SD card to capture the data. In most cases, modifications to the asphalt plant are not required for the use of these heavy-duty feeding units, which can be set-up and moved around with ease at the production facility.

While no two asphalt plants are exactly the same, most producers can deliver fiber-reinforced asphalt to the job site with just a few tweaks to their operation. FORTA Corporation has been involved in hundreds of FORTA-FI® projects around the world, and we will work with asphalt mix designers, producers, and pavers to help them deliver a quality fiber-reinforced placement to their valued customers.

"Little Shot"

For more information, please visit: www.forta-fi.com