Effects of Low-Temperature Construction Additives (LCAs) on the Performance of Asphalt Mixtures.

Yuanyuan Li,Quantao Liu,Jianlin Feng,Fan Wu,Anqi Chen,Ruifang Gong,Shaopeng Wu

doi:10.3390/ma15020677

Abstract

Green production of asphalt materials is very important to promote energy savings and emission reduction during the construction and maintenance of asphalt pavement. A low-temperature construction additive (LCA) made from the waste plastic and waste rubber is proposed, which belongs to a class of environmentally friendly additives for asphalt mixtures. Marshall stability was tested to evaluate the mechanical performance of LCA-modified asphalt mixtures (LCA-AMs). In order to determine the best preparation parameters of LCA-AMs, the influence of the content and LCA addition method on the strength of LCA-AMs was studied. In addition, the impact of epoxy resin (ER) on the mixtures’ performances was evaluated. The results show that the LCA can significantly reduce the formation temperature of asphalt mixtures, and the resulting asphalt mixtures have good workability in a lower temperature range (90–110 °C). The ER should be added to the LCA-AMs after 4 h of curing. All the volumetric properties satisfy the technical requirements. The low-temperature crack resistance and fatigue resistance of LCA-AMs were obviously improved with appropriate dosages of ER, which can effectively improve the mechanical performance of the asphalt mixtures. The ER can significantly increase the rutting resistance and water sensitivity of LCA-AMs, therefore making it feasible to improve the mixture performance by the enhancement provided by a low dosage of ER.

Highlights

Asphalt pavement is a kind of continuous pavement without joints, which is the main form of highway pavement and has many advantages, such as smoothness, low noise, durability, anti-skid properties and easy maintenance [1]
The purpose of warm mix asphalt (WMA) technology is to reduce the viscosity of asphalt binder at high temperature [11,12] by various methods such as the use of organic viscosity reduction additives [13], the foaming viscosity reduction method [14] or using surface-active viscosity reduction additives [15] without reducing the construction quality and mixture performance of the resulting asphalt mixtures, so as to reduce the mixing temperature of these mixtures [8,16]
Kim [23] studied the properties of WMA and hot-mixed asphalt mixtures (HMAs) with the same performance graded (PG) asphalt binder and aggregate gradation, and the results showed that WMA had poorer rutting resistance than HMA

Summary

Introduction

Asphalt pavement is a kind of continuous pavement without joints, which is the main form of highway pavement and has many advantages, such as smoothness, low noise, durability, anti-skid properties and easy maintenance [1]. Heating the asphalt mixture to high temperature requires a lot of fuel consumption [5], and emits greenhouse gases and toxic gases [6]. The purpose of WMA technology is to reduce the viscosity of asphalt binder at high temperature [11,12] by various methods such as the use of organic viscosity reduction additives [13], the foaming viscosity reduction method [14] or using surface-active viscosity reduction additives [15] without reducing the construction quality and mixture performance of the resulting asphalt mixtures, so as to reduce the mixing temperature of these mixtures [8,16]. Compared with HMA, WMA can reduce fuel consumption by more than

Methods

Results

Conclusion