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About PaveCool

One of the biggest problems in Minnesota's bituminous pavements is a lack of in-place density due to late season paving practices. When bituminous materials are placed in cool weather, they are difficult to compact properly because the asphalt stiffens too rapidly.
A computer tool (PaveCool) has been developed to assist contractors, inspectors and engineers to make rapid decisions regarding cool-weather paving. The user enters the time of day, the date and the latitude of the paving job. Next, the type of mixture is entered along with the type of surface being paved.
The surface temperature, air temperature, wind speed, lift thickness and mixture delivery temperature are then entered. The final input is the amount of cloud cover.
A heat flow model is used to compute the temperature drop in the mat and the time it takes for the asphalt mix to cool from it's delivery temperature to 175 °F (80 °C).
If the user feels that there is an inadequate amount of time available to compact the mixture, options can be explored to extend the time. For instance, increasing the lift thickness or mix temperature will increase the window of time for effective compaction of the pavement.
Version 2.4 enables the user to specify starting and stopping compaction temperatures according to agency or manufactures specifications.
Please send questions and comments to Bruce Tanquist at bruce.tanquist@state.mn.us

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