Abstract
The utilization of waste polyethylene terephthalate (WPET) as aggregate substitutes in pavement has been extensively promoted because of its environmental advantages. However, previous studies have shown that a high percentage of WPET reduces the performance of the pavement. To increase the durability of pavement and mitigate the environmental issues caused by WPET, WPET is treated with gamma-irradiation as a component in asphalt mixtures. The study objectives were to investigate the feasibility of using WPET granules as a sustainable aggregate on asphalt mixture stiffness and rutting and predict the asphalt mixture performance containing irradiated WPET via an RSM-ANN-framework. To achieve the objectives, stiffness and rutting tests were conducted to evaluate the WPET modified mixtures’ performance. The result indicated that samples containing 40% irradiated WPET provided a better performance compared to mixtures containing 20% non-irradiated WPET, increasing the stiffness by 27% and 21% at 25 °C and 40 °C, respectively, and rutting resistance by 11% at 45 °C. Furthermore, both predictive models developed demonstrated excellent reliability. The ANN exhibited superior performance than the RSM. The utilization of WPET as aggregate in asphalt mixtures represents a way to addressing related recycling issues while also improving performance. With gamma-irradiation treatment, the utilization of WPET can be increased with improved asphalt mixture performance.
Highlights
The growing waste material production on the globe each day is one of the most critical environmental concerns
As depicted in the diffractogram, the irradiated waste PET (IWPET) had larger intensity peaks compared to the regular waste PET (RWPET) indicating a larger area under the curve and higher crystallinity
The feasibility of incorporating RWPET and IWPET granules as sustainable aggregate in densely graded asphalt mixture, was evaluated and the impact of environmental condition and the replacement percentage by volume of IWPET granules on the stiffness and rutting characteristics of IWPET-modified asphalt blends were investigated by response surface methodology (RSM) and artificial neural network (ANN)
Summary
The growing waste material production on the globe each day is one of the most critical environmental concerns. Plastic waste is considered a serious challenge. The design of road pavements requires the exploration of high quantities of virgin materials (mostly aggregates) and mass transport, resulting in increased greenhouse gas emissions [3,4]. The demand for material diversification in road pavements, especially in developing countries, can be attributed to the growing need for improved efficiency, longevity, and minimize costs of rehabilitation and construction [3]. The significant population growth leads to an increase in vehicle traffic and axle loads, leading to road section premature defects such as rutting and fatigue cracking [3,5,6,7]
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