Fundamental Approaches to Predict Moisture Damage in Asphalt Mixtures: State-of-the-Art Review

Hilde Soenen,Stefan Vansteenkiste,Patricia Kara De Maeijer

doi:10.3390/infrastructures5020020

Abstract

Moisture susceptibility is still one of the primary causes of distress in flexible pavements, reducing the pavements’ durability. A very large number of tests are available to evaluate the susceptibility of a binder aggregate combination. Tests can be conducted on the asphalt mixture, either in a loose or compacted form, or on the individual components of an asphalt pavement. Apart from various mechanisms and models, fundamental concepts have been proposed to calculate the thermodynamic tendency of a binder aggregate combination to adhere and/or debond under wet conditions. The aim of this review is to summarize literature findings and conclusions, regarding these concepts as carried out in the CEDR project FunDBits. The applied test methods, the obtained results, and the validation or predictability of these fundamental approaches are discussed.

Highlights

Moisture in asphalt pavement structures can lead to phenomena such as stripping, raveling, and pothole formation, limiting the lifetime and durability of the pavement
There seems to be a good agreement in the total surface energy levels found, the levels found by Bahramian [39], and Zhang et al [22] are slightly higher
There is some variation between different binders, but it is small, and it is not clear how this relates to other properties

Summary

Introduction

Moisture in asphalt pavement structures can lead to phenomena such as stripping, raveling, and pothole formation, limiting the lifetime and durability of the pavement. The first level consists of tests, conducted on the individual components, traditionally comprising of the binder, the aggregate, and possible additives. Nowadays this level will include renewable, as well as secondary (waste) materials [2,3,4]. The level includes tests conducted on loose asphalt mixture, while subsequent levels consider tests involving compacted asphalt mixtures, and compacted mixture in a pavement under field conditions. It is obvious that the number of parameters and the test complexity increase as tests move from the individual components to the pavement level

Objectives

Results

Conclusion