A team of Purdue civil engineering undergraduate and graduate students has won the inaugural national asphalt mixture design competition.

Sponsored by CRH Materials Americas, Inc., the largest construction materials provider in North America, a total of 10 university teams competed to see which team could design the best performing asphalt mixture at the lowest cost. The teams were from universities with national and international reputations in asphalt teaching and research.

The Purdue team of Miguel Montoya, Mohammadreza Pouranian, Harsh Patel, and Chris Allen won the competition scoring 105.3 points out of a possible 100 points. The team received bonus points for high asphalt mixture performance while holding the line on costs. As the first place team, the members will split $5,000 and be recognized by the asphalt industry.

The Purdue team was sponsored and guided by Reyhaneh Rahbar-Rastegar and John Haddock. Rahbar-Rastegar works as a research engineer with Professor Haddock’s research group in the Lyles School of Civil Engineering.

(L to R): John Haddock, Professor of Civil Engineering; Miguel Montoya, Graduate Research Assistant; Reyhaneh Rahbar-Rastegar, Research Engineer; Harsh Patel, Graduate Research Assistant; Mohammadreza Pouranian, Graduate Research Assistant; Jim Musselman, CRH Materials Americas, Inc. (Not pictured: Chris Allen, Undergraduate Research Assistant)