Evaluating the Effect of High RAP Content on Asphalt Mixtures and Binders Fatigue Behavior

Abstract

Abstract One of the main concerns with the application of reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) in the asphalt concrete pavement is fatigue cracking due to the stiffness increase with the addition of aged and stiff RAP binder. The purpose of this study is to evaluate fatigue performance of asphalt binder and mixtures with different RAP percentages (0, 15, 25, 35 and 40 %). Among these, 35 and 40 % RAP mixes are considered as high RAP content. This study describes the results of laboratory fatigue response of asphalt mixtures and extracted binders containing RAP to define the effect of RAP on the fatigue performance. To achieve this objective, mixes and binders were tested using the beam fatigue test and the time-sweep test, respectively. Test results were analyzed using two different fatigue approaches, reduction in stiffness and dissipated energy criteria. Results showed that a higher initial stiffness and initial dissipated energy initiate the fatigue failure faster. Since both binders and mixes show an increase in the stiffness and energy consumed per loading cycle with the addition of RAP, resulting mixes containing higher RAP have a very short fatigue life. Also, the fatigue endurance limit decreases drastically with the addition of RAP in the mix. The results comparing two different RAP sources showed that the RAP source has more prominent effect on the mix fatigue performance than the binder fatigue performance. Finally, the traditional fatigue life prediction model is modified to incorporate the effect of RAP in the fatigue equation. The modified regression model predicted reasonable fatigue life of the mixture with a coefficient of determination (R2) close to 1. The measured and predicted fatigue life results were found close to each other for both mix and binder containing RAP.