Evaluation of Warm Mix Asphalt with Reclaimed Asphalt Pavement in Rhode Island

Abstract

AbstractThe potential for using Warm Mix Asphalt (WMA) in reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) is becoming more interesting topic nowadays due to economic and environmental benefits. WMA technology allows reductions in production and compaction temperatures guaranteeing relevant environmental cost saving benefits. The objectives of the present study were to investigate and evaluate the performance of a typical additive in WMA pavement with RAP on rutting, fatigue cracking and thermal cracking resistance, which was used on Rhode Island (RI) Route 102. The asphalt binder was tested at different dosages of WMA additive using Dynamic Shear Rheometer (DSR), Rolling Thin Film Oven (RTFO), Pressure Aging Vessel (PAV), Multiple Stress Creep Recovery (MSCR), and Bending Beam Rheometer (BBR). It was found that 0.70% additive would lessen pavement damage in case of rutting, fatigue cracking and thermal cracking. After that, two HMA specimens, with and without RAP and two WMA specimen with and without RAP were prepared using Superpave Gyratory Compactor (SGC). These specimens were tested with the Asphalt Mixture Performance Tester (AMPT) and developed master curves for each specimen. It was observed that WMA mixtures with RAP, could perform better in fatigue resistance but expected to have poor rutting performance than HMA and HMA-RAP. This study indicates that addition of WMA additives performs better in fatigue resistance.KeywordsWarm mix asphaltReclaimed asphalt pavementDynamic modulusSuperpave gyratory compactorMaster curveFatigue