HIMOD IN ACTION Over the past few years, Staker Parson Materials & Construction has had the opportunity to produce and place HiMod asphalt on numerous projects. After completing HiMod asphalt at the Wendover Port of Entry and on the West Davis Corridor projects, we shared our “lessons learned” with UDOT’s State Asphalt Engineer Howard Anderson and Region 2 Materials Engineer Lonnie Merchant with the process of testing and ultimately bringing HiMod asphalt onto Utah roadways. After UDOT’s years of testing, in June of 2021, the I-80 eastbound port of entry in Wendover, Utah, was chosen as the HiMod test site. The Staker Parson team got to work laying a single, super-thick lift of HiMod. “I was a little skeptical of laying six inches of asphalt in one lift, as four inches is typically the maximum lift allowed by spec that had been done in the past,” said Jonas Staker, Staker Parson Materials & Construction construction manager of the Southern Wasatch Front. “However, I knew that Howard and the others had been testing these super-thick lifts for many years. I had the absolute confidence that it was going to work.” The test was successful, to say the least. Maintaining the Wendover Port of Entry pavement has been difficult for the department to manage, however, three years in, the HiMod asphalt is performing beautifully. (Please keep in mind our Port of Entry asphalt was using HMA mix, not OGSC.) With a typical OGSC binder, the asphalt starts to fail at 40,000 passes. That becomes an issue on high traffic roads. From what we’ve heard, UDOT has tested using HiMod binder in OGSC and the results 19
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