An efficient and robust method for evaluating the low-temperature performance of asphalt binder based on DSR testing

Abstract

The BBR test has received growing concerns regarding its applicability to field studies and special materials due to the large amount of long-term aged asphalt binder used in preparing asphalt binder beams and the time-consuming beam preparation and testing process. In recent years, the application of a dynamic shear rheometer (DSR) to investigate the low-temperature performance of asphalt binder has attracted widespread attention because it uses significantly less asphalt binder for testing and allows for easy specimen preparation. The objective of this study was to develop an efficient and robust method to evaluate the low-temperature performance of asphalt binder based on DSR testing. Frequency sweep tests were performed on twelve asphalt binders at temperatures ranging from 0 to 25 °C using the 8-mm parallel plate geometry. Two conversions were applied to frequency sweep test data in order to predict the flexural creep stiffness and m-value of asphalt binder, namely the conversion from frequency domain to time domain and the conversion from shear loading to bending loading. The 1S2P1D model was employed to construct the master curves of storage modulus and loss modulus. Afterwards, the flexural creep stiffness was predicted using the shear creep compliance master curve model, which was derived from the 1S2P1D model using the inverse Laplace transform, and the Poisson’s ratio, which was assumed to be constant. It was found that the predicted values of S(60) and m(60) were comparable to the counterparts measured by the BBR, which well demonstrated the feasibility of the proposed DSR-BBR conversion method. In comparison to existing analysis methods, the proposed conversion method strictly complied with the linear viscoelastic theory, and it enabled efficient and robust predictions because the prediction model of flexural creep stiffness had the same parameters as those of the 1S2P1D model, thus avoiding multiple data fittings.