Abstract
Microwave heating of asphalt pavement is a promising technique to reduce the maintenance and increase the service life of materials through self-healing of cracks. Previous studies have shown that microwave heating technology at high temperatures could damage the bitumen of asphalt mixture, which is an unwanted effect of the crack-healing technique. In this study, the effects of microwave heating and long-term aging on the rheological and chemical properties of recovered bitumen were quantified using a frequency sweep test and Fourier Transform Infrared Spectrometry analysis, respectively. The main results indicate that microwave heating has no significant effect on the aging performance of G* and for aged asphalt mixtures. However, for newer bitumens, the rheological properties G* and show minor changes after microwave heating was applied. Overall, this study confirms that microwave heating is a potential alternative for maintenance of asphalt pavements, without severely affecting the rheological and chemical properties of bitumen.
Highlights
Asphalt mixture is the most widely used material for pavement road construction because it provides good mechanical performance, economy, and construction advantages [1]
G∗Aged GU∗ naged where GU∗ naged, δUnaged are the complex modulus and phase angle of the unaged bitumen, which are represented by the control bitumen sample, i.e., bitumen 1, and G∗Aged, δAged are the complex modulus and phase angle of the aged recovered bitumen samples, which were exposed to different microwave heating and long-term aging cycles
This paper evaluated the effect of microwave heating and long-term aging on recovered bitumen through rheological and chemical properties
Summary
Asphalt mixture is the most widely used material for pavement road construction because it provides good mechanical performance, economy, and construction advantages [1]. Microwave radiation applies alternating electromagnetic fields with a higher frequency, causing a change in the orientation of polar molecules, which result in internal friction and increase the material temperature [12] In this way, at 30–70 ◦C, the bitumen in asphalt mixtures reduces its viscosity and begins to flow through microcracks [13]. They found no clearly negative effect of micro wave heating and concluded that the microwave heating causes slight aging in the bitu men These physical properties are an empirical measurement that canno effectively describe the viscoelastic characteristics of bitumen and fail to co relate well with asphalt mixture performance [29].
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