Evaluation of fatigue performance of high RAP-WMA mixtures

Abstract

The present work investigates the influence of asphalt modifiers at the beginning of the fatigue process through the mixture damage accumulation. In this sense, this paper uses the Simplified Viscoelastic Continuum Damage (S-VECD) methodology to compare the fatigue performance of a 50% RAP warm mix asphalt (WMA) to a 50% RAP hot mix asphalt (HMA), and five different asphalt mixtures with and without modifiers. Results show that combining WMA (foaming process) with 50% RAP mixture significantly improved the fatigue performance of the mixture, including in comparison with an HMA using 100% virgin materials. Therefore, considering the advantages presented by a 50% RAP WMA, e.g. lower environmental impact, lower cost and good fatigue performance, the warm mix recycling is a promising alternative for performance optimization.