Hot mix asphalt, the standard paving material made by drying and heating aggregate, coating it with hot binder at a plant and placing it while still hot, with discharge temperatures commonly around 280 to 330 F. It has to be laid and rolled before it cools below the point where it can still be compacted. In specs, HMA is the umbrella term for dense-graded, SMA and open-graded mixes produced this way.
Bid item's 4,800 tons of HMA surface plus the base, so figure two weeks if the plant can keep the trucks coming.
Several northeastern specs say bituminous concrete, so bituminous on a plan sheet means the same product.
Also heard as
- hot mix
- asphalt concrete
- bituminous concrete
Do not mix it up with
- WMA: Warm mix uses the same ingredients but is produced roughly 30 to 100 F cooler with additives or foaming.
Related terms
WMA
Warm mix asphalt: mix produced and placed about 30 to 100 F cooler than hot mix using additives or foaming.
Asphalt binder
The black, sticky petroleum cement that glues the aggregate together in an asphalt mix.
Blacktop
Everyday name for asphalt pavement, used by driveway crews, homeowners and road crews alike.
AC
Asphalt cement: the binder itself, and in pavement design talk, shorthand for the asphalt concrete layer.