For the first time in its history, National Pavement Expo (NPE) will visit Cleveland, OH, home of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum (and the National Cleveland-Style Polka Hall of Fame), among other sites. In its 32-year-history NPE has visited Nashville; Charlotte, NC; Tampa and Fort Lauderdale, FL; Atlanta, GA; and Memphis, TN, but this will be the first time NPE has been held north of the Mason-Dixon line.
The 2018 NPE will be held Feb. 7-10 at the Huntington Convention Center of Cleveland in downtown Cleveland. (A pre-NPE Boot Camp by Brad Humphrey, Pinnacle Development Group, will be held Feb. 6.) The convention center is connected to the 600-room Hilton Cleveland Downtown, which is among the hotels NPE will be utilizing.
The 2018 NPE follows NPE’s 2017 conference and trade show in Nashville, which was the largest and most successful event in NPE’s 32-year history. The 2018 educational conference will feature 54 sessions including the day-long pre-NPE Boot Camp and 11 in-depth workshops. The remaining 42 sessions are 90 minutes each. Of the 54 sessions 39 are new and several will be updated with new video.
Conference sessions will cover a broad variety of paving topics. Asphalt paving sessions will cover the basics for crew members and those new to the business as well as more advanced “how to” topics for those looking to improve efficiency on the job.
Here’s a paving-and-repair focused sampling of some of NPE 2018’s sessions.
Applying “Best Practices” to Your Paving Operation, presented by paving jobsite specialist John Ball, Top Quality Paving, is an annual 3-hour “how to” program that takes contractors step-by-step through the paving operation. Ball relies on videos he’s taken on consulting jobs throughout the year to demonstrate various paver operations, proper and improper techniques, paving “best practices,” and problems and their solutions.
Ball will make his presence known throughout the NPE conference (he presents four sessions) including Solving the Paving Puzzle: Video Solutions Show How a Job Fits Together and Diagram It! How to Pave a Parking Lot & a Cul-de-Sac from Start to Finish, which will use step-by-step diagrams (and some video) to teach how to determine the amount of mix for each type of job, how to determine haul truck size and delivery schedule, how to “line-out” the start of the work and plan the paving, and how to achieve the required slope and density. He’ll also present “best practices” to guarantee quality and efficiency.
An annual NPE paving expert, Jim Scherocman, P.E., Consulting Engineer will present Identifying, Preventing and Solving Mat Problems, which will cover how to differentiate among four primary problem areas: the properties of the mix itself, site-related conditions, equipment-related problems, and long-term durability issues. Then he’ll discuss how to prevent specific problems in each area from happening and how to fix them if they do occur.
Scherocman follows that session with Effective Compaction of Hot Mix Asphalt, in which he will outline the basic elements of compaction and the use of various types of rollers, including static steel wheel, pneumatic tire and vibratory steel wheel rollers. He’ll cover compaction of both stiff and tender hot mix asphalt mixtures and will emphasize the use of different rollers and rolling patterns for different paving situations.
Nigel McKay, Weiler, will present a new session, Fundamentals of Asphalt Pavers and Asphalt Paving – an introductory class that covers paving equipment basics. He’ll discuss each component of the paver – augers, screws, conveyors and screeds – including what each component does, how each works, how the components work together, and how operators can adjust components to get the desired end result of a high-quality mat. He also will provide a checklist of tips to help operators make sure the paving machine is operating at peak performance.
How to Run the “Perfect Paving Project” is a new paving session from Pavement Advisory Board member Connie Lorenz, Asphalt Restoration Services, who says that while “there’s no such thing as a ‘Perfect Paving Project’ – commercial customers still expect it.” So Lorenz has developed a “pursuit of perfection” session that will cover what to include in the essential pre-con meeting, tips on communicating with clients (and a unique suggestion to help them better grasp what’s going to be happening on their property), how to plan for and handle the “unexpected issues,” and how a “team walk-through” leads to a successful end-of-project client meeting.
Improving Your Infrared Pavement Repair Operation. Another Pavement Advisory Board member, Tom Eosso, Eosso Brothers Paving, has become the go-to infrared contractor at NPE’s conference. He’ll cover the basics of the infrared process and how to perform the work (including a step-by-step explanation of a basic infrared repair). Relying on photos and on-the-job video, Eosso will “work through” examples of the variety of jobs and repairs that can be completed successfully using infrared technology. And, he’ll highlight specific infrared field techniques and approaches to help make infrared pavement repair efficient, successful and profitable.
Just as John Ball kicked off NPE Feb. 7 with his 3-hour workshop, he ends on Feb. 10 with this 90-minutue session, Troubleshooting HMA Joint Construction. Ball will emphasize proper construction techniques of butt and tapered transverse joints and standard and wedge longitudinal joints, and he’ll provide practical tips on joint construction hand work. He’ll also explain why construction of the first lane of paving is important in joint success, how the screed can improve joint construction, he’ll provide an update of the latest research and "best practices" tips, and offer insights on joint compaction, including rolling from both the hot and cold side, as well as joint compaction Dos and Don’ts.
For details including complete session descriptions and the full four-day schedule visit www.nationalpavementexpo.com
