Virgin aggregate is heated and dried in a drum dryer and uses this heated mass to heat and dry reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) and/or recycled asphalt shingles (RAS) materials in a drum mixer before blending with virgin asphalt binder. However, often the virgin aggregate temperature inside the dryer is unknown since many dryers do not have a temperature-measuring unit but the mixer has. Up to this end, thermodynamics and heat transfer principles are applied to predict virgin aggregate temperatures necessary to dry and heat RAP/RAS with varying moisture content and for various hot-mix asphalt (HMA) mix proportions. Among the many results, it is found that for a HMA mix consisting of 50% virgin aggregate with 3% moisture content and 50% RAP with 5% moisture content, the temperature required to raise the virgin aggregate temperature is 608 degrees C to dry and heat virgin aggregate and RAP. For verification purposes, the virgin aggregate temperature is recorded at a drum plant facility, and thermodynamics and heat transfer principles are used to predict the virgin aggregate temperatures. It has been observed that for the HMA mix, the temperature predicted for larger-size virgin aggregate shows good agreement with the recorded value. (C) 2016 American Society of Civil Engineers.