Field calibration and validation of a pavement aging model

Abstract

ABSTRACT A pavement aging model (PAM) is established by calibrating and validating the NCHRP 09–54 kinetics model's predictions against field core measurements. Field cores, laboratory-mixed loose mixtures, and binders from a wide range of pavement sections are used, including both conventional hot mix asphalt (HMA) mixtures and modern materials (i.e. reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP), warm mix asphalt (WMA), and polymer modified asphalt (PMA)). Field aging levels are measured at different depths from binder extracted and recovered from in-service field cores. The original component materials of these pavement sections are aged in the laboratory and used to calibrate the kinetics model. The measured field aging levels are compared against those predicted from the kinetics model to inform a depth and time dependent field calibration function for the PAM. The validation of PAM using an independent set of field sections shows that, within the limited data used in this study, the calibrated PAM may be able to predict the aging of the conventional HMA, RAP, WMA, and PMA mixtures. The PAM predictions are lastly found to outmatch the predictions by the Global Aging System (GAS) model.