Phoenix treated the main runway at Sky Harbor International Airport with an asphalt-rubber seal in June 1972 and left the taxiway adjacent to it untreated. The asphalt beneath the untreated taxiway had hardened more than 20 times as much as the asphalt protected by the rubber seal, which was the result of thirteen years of pavement sampling. Russell Howard Schnormeier, who was an engineer with the City of Phoenix, documented the comparison in a 1986 paper that was published in Transportation Research Record , with the two surfaces using otherwise identical asphaltic concrete. The main runway received a stress-absorbing membrane, or SAM, that was made from asphalt-rubber and small stone chips, while the adjacent taxiway did not receive the treatment.
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