The International Society for Asphalt Pavements (ISAP) is a volunteer organisation of professionals and experts in asphalt engineering whose goal is to share the latest in leading edge asphalt pavement technology worldwide. ISAP’s most important event, its Conference, is held every 4 years and the 13th ISAP Conference on Asphalt Pavements (ISAP2018) was held in Fortaleza (Brazil) from 19th to 21st June 2018, for the 1st time in Latin America. There were people registered from 34 countries presenting and debating ideas covering a wide range of topics within pavement infrastructure. Such events provide opportunities to share and learn ideas and discuss how the best available knowledge may be transformed into applications that can enhance people’s lives, respecting the environment with an eye on future generations. ISAP promotes such diverse gatherings and helps building a creative environment to keep turning the wheel of knowledge.
The current Special Edition of Road Materials and Pavement Design, originated from ISAP2018, provides a compilation of articles that advance the state of knowledge in the area of asphalt pavements. It contains 19 Original Scientific Papers and 1 Scientific Note reporting preliminary findings of a new method. All manuscripts are improved versions of selected 6-page papers from the 2018 ISAP Conference. They were all peer reviewed in RMPD’s high standards. The contributions in this issue present the latest advances in research to enhance the performance of asphalt pavements and to explore cutting edge technologies to make them more durable, resilient, and sustainable.
The ISAP2018 was coordinated with the activities of the ISAP Technical committees: Asphalt Pavement and Environment (APE) and Pavement Field Evaluation (PFE). The organisation of ISAP2018 conference was undertaken by Jorge B. Soares (Conference Chairman, Federal University of Ceará), Kamilla Vasconcelos (Conference Co-chairperson, University of São Paulo), Francisco Thiago S. Aragão (Conference Co-chairperson, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro), Luis Alberto Nascimento (Conference Co-chairperson, Petrobras/Cenpes) and Gabriele Tebaldi (Chairman of the Conference Scientific Committee, University of Parma and University of Florida).