Over the past four decades the FORTA Corporation has built a reputation as a leader in the synthetic reinforcement fibers industry. Through a newly announced professorship at Arizona State University, researchers in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering will work with FORTA to continue advances to develop stronger pavement materials that make roadways safer and more durable.
The FORTA corporation has achieved its status as an industry leader in large part because the company has gone beyond merely manufacturing and supplying its product to the construction, concrete and asphalt industries. FORTA has also put significant effort and investment into innovating the synthetic fibers that are used to strengthen pavements and other building materials, becoming one of the “pioneers in the applications of fiber reinforcement,” said Martin Doody, the company’s vice president of asphalt sales. “We were the first company to introduce an actual reinforcement for concrete in the United States. We were the first company to introduce reinforcements for asphalt pavements,” Doody said. “Although we’re not the largest company in that market, we like to think that we’re the leaders in the research and development of fiber technology.”
One of the bigger leaps forward in the company’s endeavors got off the ground in 2006 when FORTA was working on a project with the Boeing Company in Arizona to implement the use of synthetic fibers in asphalt pavement. For expertise in lab work and testing, the company turned to a local source of expertise: Arizona State University engineers.
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