Indian American to develop new asphalt process for India
Monday, 09 February 2004, 20:30 IST
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WASHINGTON: The Indian government has awarded a $30,300 grant to an Indian American civil and environmental engineering professor for a new asphalt design technique. Yusuf Mehta of Rowan University, New Jersey, was in India in December-January to develop the use of Superpave, a new process to develop asphalt material. As part of the grant, Mehta made a series of presentations to representatives from academia, industry and government agencies across India and helped set up a laboratory and a pavement test section in northwest India, according to a report in the Courier Post, published from New Jersey. The US strategic highway research program (SHRP) conducted a $50 million research programme during 1987-1993 to develop new ways to specify, test and design asphalt materials. The final product of the SHRP programme was Superpave, short for superior performing asphalt pavements. Superpave is an improved system for specifying the components of asphalt, asphalt mixture design and analysis, and asphalt pavement performance prediction. Mehta, who has worked on Superpave since 1995 and focused part of his doctoral dissertation on the product, expects to return to India in the summer or next winter to assist Indian authorities in developing a pavement-testing laboratory. "It is a very satisfying experience to give back to your country what you have learned here," Mehta said of his work in India.
Source: IANS
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