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Kellen Costantino to ensure smooth operations for ...
Customer satisfaction with our products and services is the highest priority at Surface Tech, even more so as we enter an important new year. We welcome Kellen Costantino as our newest Quality Control Technician. Kellen will be in charge of attending to the full line of Surface Tech dosing equipment, with an initial concentration on the asphalt side.
As the company’s primary QC go-to, he is charged with delivering a high-level customer experience primarily at plant site. With the advent of new and upgraded equipment, Kellen will play a key role in assisting customers.
Kellen brings several years of hands-on experience with Surface Tech’s automated fiber dosing machines, so plant familiarity is engrained. To start, his service area will be concentrated in the western half of the U.S.
We look forward to the extra level of customer satisfaction that Kellen will bring to Surface Tech’s product and service offerings. Welcome aboard, Kellen!
MD3 online certification course now available

Surface Tech’s micro dosing machinery — the MD3 — takes the guesswork out of the process of mixing ACE XP Polymer Fibers® into produced asphalt. And now a new online course helps remove the guesswork on how to operate the system.
The MD3 dosing system delivers a highly calibrated method for adding ACE XP Polymer Fibers® to any asphalt mixture, and once you achieve certification, you’re ready to operate the MD3 and put it to work on your next project.
The entire course takes less than an hour to complete. It combines text and video to walk you through the process of set-up, operation, and tear down and storage. The certification test at the end provides instant feedback on your answers, and you can retake it as many times as needed in order to achieve 100 percent.
Contractors who have come to depend on ACE XP Polymer Fibers® to make asphalt more durable and long-lasting will definitely appreciate how the MD3 provides a foolproof process for adding the fibers to the mix.
Operators tell us they find the MD3 dosing system to be extremely user friendly. It can serve as a permanent plant fixture or be outfitted in a cargo trailer for mobility purposes. It sets up in minutes and can be operated by one person.
The training program is easy to follow, and most producers will find it’s a cinch to get certified. To get started on your certification, contact your Surface Tech representative for access.
VA DOT moves Balanced Mix Design from lab to test ...

Virginia DOT has witnessed how the Balanced Mix Design (BMD) methodology can lead to better paving solutions in the laboratory, and now the agency is taking it to the streets with a new field-testing initiative. At the end of August, Colony Construction paved two sections of Route 903 in Mecklenburg County, VA (Richmond District) using VDOT’s new BMD approach for asphalt pavement design.
REARM HR, (formerly known as SMART RAP) Surface Tech’s new sustainable technology, was chosen to be evaluated alongside a control pavement. The technology has proven effective on VDOT’s required cracking and rutting performance under the BMD Initiative, while also increasing the use of recycled asphalt pavement (RAP) from 15% to 35%.

Two challenges were overcome with this mix design. First, the location of Colony Construction’s Plant — 50+ miles from the worksite — posed a compaction and temperature concern. Second, the available RAP or millings, sourced mostly from county road rehabilitation where the average roadway is repaved almost half as often as other VDOT roadways, left the resulting RAP binder considerably oxidized and hard.
Colony Construction’s RAP pile graded out at PG 110 (10), which made it mandatory to soften this RAP binder before it could be used in BMD, especially since the test called for adding more than 15% RAP to the mixture. A 35% RAP content was not envisioned when the project started in lab testing.

A 1,400-ton section of Route 903 utilized a single dose (4.2 oz. / Plant Mix Ton) of Surface Tech’s 38mm para-aramid polymer fiber product along with TUFFTREK 4007 (3.4% of total asphalt content) by Georgia Pacific Chemical, an engineered bio-oil. The REARM HR additives were mixed with the PG 58-28 Binder, in a 6.0% Asphalt Content with a 35% RAP mix.
The mix was produced in Colony Construction’s plant in Burkeville, VA, which is approximately an hour away from the paving location just north of the North Carolina border. Consequently, a warm mix additive was also used to ensure proper compaction after the long haul and cooler installation temperatures.
At the end of the second day, a 200-ton section was laid using a double dose (8.4 oz./ Plant Mix Ton) of Surface Tech’s para-aramid polymer fibers while holding steady the TUFFTREK 4007, the RAP percentage and the binder type and quantity at the previous dosage amounts.
TUFFTREK 4007 softened the virgin binder in the oxidized RAP, while the para-aramid polymer fibers provided reinforcement to improve both rutting and cracking resistance in the final mixture. Surface Tech supplied a new dosing pump to ensure accurate dosing of the TUFFTREK bio-oil, and the company also utilized its own MD3 dosing machine to feed the para-aramid polymer fibers into the mix. The project was completed in two days at a production speed between 150 to 175 tph.
“We were able to provide a better performing asphalt and increase the use of RAP at the same time because of our technology,” said Joe Dennis, Surface Tech’s Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for Asphalt.
Early IDEAL CT testing at the plant revealed a 25% to 40% increase in the CT INDEX over the control pavement for the single dose and a 50% increase for the double dose.


“It was great to see RAP used as part of the BMD initiative,” said Travis Cable from Colony Construction. “Of course, the REARM HR technology allowed this important resource to be utilized in a much bigger way while not sacrificing performance — truly amazing.”.
“Virginia DOT was pleased to see a high RAP mix, and especially to see it work so beautifully,” said Dennis.
The agency is now interested in putting Surface Tech’s new ARMI™ product to work. ARMI™ is the company’s revolutionary reflective crack relief interlayer solution that vastly improves crack resistance. A pilot project is planned for the spring of 2021.

New and improved MD3+
More accurate than ever — just in time for the asphalt season
Last July, Surface Tech introduced the MD3+, the latest version of its Micro Doser system that can handle both 19mm or 38mm sizes of ACE XP polymer fibers. This year, the MD3+ comes with added improvements to the computer interface, which tracks the total weight used and average dosage rate right on the home screen to ensure the accurate dosing of 4.2 ounces of ACE XP into each ton of produced asphalt.
“We are proud to announce that we’ve succeeded in making some programming enhancements that improve the dosing accuracy even more —MD3+ can now dose to within 2 percent of the dosage rate. This is well under Surface Tech’s suggested 5 percent in our product and dosage specifications,” said Joe Dennis, vice president & chief technical officer.
Additionally, Surface Tech has ramped up the availability of the MD3+. The company will be stocking a fleet of more than 20 MD3+ systems strategically around the country and making them available just in time for the spring asphalt season.
To find out how to add the MD3+ and Surface Tech’s revolutionary ACE XP polymer fibers to your next asphalt project, Contact Surface Tech today. We make asphalt stronger than steel, with a life cycle that can go the distance.