Coppe student receives award for research on paving

The results of the Abertis Chair Award – Brazil have been announced, and Coppe/UFRJ, once again, had a student recognized in one of the most important awards focused on sustainable mobility. Alexis Jair Enríquez-León received an honorable mention in the Doctoral category for his dissertation “Rumo ao desenvolvimento de um sistema de classificação e caracterização de ligantes asfálticos brasileiros baseado em propriedades reológicas” (Towards the Development of a Rheological-Based Classification and Characterization System for Brazilian Asphalt Binders), which he wrote under the guidance of Professor Thiago Aragão in the Civil Engineering Program.

This research addresses a strategic challenge for Brazil. With one of the world’s largest highway networks—more than 1.7 million kilometers of roads—the country relies on highways to move approximately 65% of all freight transported. Improving pavement quality means extending the service life of roads, reducing maintenance costs, minimizing transportation disruptions, and making the distribution of goods more efficient, thereby generating significant economic benefits for society as a whole.

The national awards will be presented on September 2 in São Paulo during an event organized by USP and Arteris S.A., a company specializing in highway management and a member of the Abertis Group.

In addition to the financial award, the national winners earn a spot in the Abertis Cátedra International Award, where they will compete against the best projects from the network in Spain, France, Puerto Rico, Chile, Italy, and Mexico.

Alexis Enríquez-León’s thesis is available on the Civil Engineering Program’s website.

About the research

Brazil has one of the largest highway networks on the planet, and land transportation is the backbone of the country’s logistics system. However, according to the National Transportation Confederation (CNT), more than 60% of Brazilian highways show some form of deterioration, such as cracks, potholes, and deformations, compromising safety, driving up maintenance costs, and increasing the cost of transporting people and goods.

Part of this problem relates to the specifications for asphalt binders—the component responsible for binding the mineral aggregates that make up the pavement. Although they are critical to highway performance, the technical criteria applied in Brazil are still largely based on empirical methods developed in the early 20th century.

Developed at the Asphalt Mixture Laboratory at Coppe/UFRJ, Alexis Enríquez-León’s research identified the most effective technical parameters for predicting the actual behavior of asphalt binders in service and demonstrated that the methods currently required by Brazilian standards are not sufficient to accurately assess their performance.

The research also addresses a growing need in the highway sector. Today, the Brazilian market uses different types of asphalt binders, including conventional asphalts (PEN), polymer-modified asphalts (PMA), and asphalts modified with scrap tire rubber (RMA). Without proper classification criteria to adequately distinguish the performance of these materials, there is an increased risk of using binders that are unsuitable for certain weather and traffic conditions, thereby reducing the service life of pavements.

The results indicate that adopting specifications based on the actual performance of materials can bring significant benefits to the country. More durable pavements reduce the need for repairs, lower public spending on highway maintenance—which totals tens of billions of reais each year—and reduce the logistics costs faced by the productive sector. In addition, the increased durability of roads helps reduce material consumption, waste generation, and carbon emissions associated with maintenance work, making Brazil’s highway infrastructure more efficient and sustainable.