Samuel G. Bonasso, ’62 civil engineer, won the 2016 American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Grand Challenge Infrastructure Innovation Contest for Most Feasible Green Engineering Idea with his invention, confined aggregate concrete, a tire reuse technology. On June 20, 2017, he presented the Mechanical Concrete® Pothole Terminator application of his invention to an ASCE mock-Shark Tank panel and a national audience.
Bonasso, owner of five U.S. patents and founder of three businesses, is not only a career civil engineer, but also a public servant, serving as West Virginia Secretary of Transportation in Governor Cecil H. Underwood’s administration and as deputy administrator and subsequently acting administrator of the Research and Special Programs Administration at the U.S. Department of Transportation during the presidency of George W. Bush.
Mechanical Concrete® functions like a construction operating system. Pothole Terminator is an application of confined aggregate concrete, and a permanent solution for potholes. Removing both sidewalls from a waste auto tire creates an industrial-strength, low-cost, thin-walled, tire-derived geosynthetic-cylinder. Mechanical Concrete® confines stone aggregates in a thin-walled cylinder, dramatically improving the structural performance of the crushed stone and aggregate materials.
