University of Alaska asphalt research program

Tom's visit ten or fifteen years before this lecture (so ~late 1990s/early 2000s) to UA Fairbanks, where a program was running on improved asphalts for the southern half of Alaska. Used to illustrate that even mature composite materials (asphalt) have unsolved environmental-durability research problems.

I was at University of Alaska in Fairbanks ten or fifteen years ago and they had a big program for the southern half of Alaska to get better asphalts, because they spend a tremendous amount of money repairing those roads — not because of a deficiency in the material, but there just is no material that survives the severe winters. That's why you can watch Ice Road Truckers — go north of a certain level and they just use ice for the road.