Experiences with Stone Matrix Asphalt (SMA)

Sant Kumar Sehgal and Bernd Abele

Review

In the sixties and early seventies, studded tires were used in Germany during wintertime. The wear of asphalt surface courses under the spikes was extreme. Research and investigations on the performance of surface courses of asphalt concrete (AC) and gußasphalt verified that wear and rutting by studded tires was increased by:

high air void content of the surface course,
low bitumen content,
inadequate quality and quantity of aggregates.

In the end of the sixties, these results were the starting point for several large companies of the asphalt paving industry to develop specific mixes which were published under different proprietary names. Later, all these mixes were standardized and called Stone Mastic Asphalt or Stone Matrix Asphalt like in India (see IRC:SP:79:2008).

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