Editing Concrete (section)

===Asphalt===
{{main|Asphalt concrete}}

''Asphalt concrete'' (commonly called ''asphalt'',<ref>{{cite book |title=The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language |year=2011 |publisher=Houghton Mifflin Harcourt |location=Boston |isbn=978-0-547-04101-8 |page=106 }}</ref> ''blacktop'', or ''pavement'' in North America, and ''tarmac'', ''bitumen macadam'', or ''rolled asphalt'' in the [[United Kingdom]] and [[Republic of Ireland|Ireland]]) is a [[composite material]] commonly used to surface [[road surface|roads]], [[parking lot]]s, [[airport]]s, as well as the core of [[embankment dam]]s.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.waterpowermagazine.com/story.asp?storyCode=472 |title=Asphalt concrete cores for embankment dams |publisher=International Water Power and Dam Construction |access-date=3 April 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120707001414/http://www.waterpowermagazine.com/story.asp?storyCode=472 |archive-date=7 July 2012 }}</ref> Asphalt mixtures have been used in pavement construction since the beginning of the twentieth century.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Polaczyk |first1=Pawel |last2=Huang |first2=Baoshan |last3=Shu |first3=Xiang |last4=Gong |first4=Hongren |title=Investigation into Locking Point of Asphalt Mixtures Utilizing Superpave and Marshall Compactors |journal=Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering |date=September 2019 |volume=31 |issue=9 |doi=10.1061/(ASCE)MT.1943-5533.0002839 |s2cid=197635732 }}</ref> It consists of [[Construction aggregate|mineral aggregate]] [[Binder (material)|bound]] together with [[Bitumen|asphalt]], laid in layers, and compacted. The process was refined and enhanced by Belgian inventor and U.S. immigrant [[Edward De Smedt]].<ref>{{cite book|url={{google books|plainurl=y|id=6iS8BwAAQBAJ|page=120}}|title=Roads Were Not Built for Cars: How Cyclists Were the First to Push for Good Roads & Became the Pioneers of Motoring |last=Reid |first=Carlton |date=2015 |publisher=Island Press |isbn=978-1-61091-689-9|page=120|language=en}}</ref>

The terms ''asphalt'' (or ''asphaltic'') ''concrete'', ''bituminous asphalt concrete'', and ''bituminous mixture'' are typically used only in [[engineering]] and construction documents, which define concrete as any composite material composed of mineral aggregate adhered with a binder. The abbreviation, ''AC'', is sometimes used for ''asphalt concrete'' but can also denote ''asphalt content'' or ''asphalt cement'', referring to the liquid asphalt portion of the composite material.