Laboratory investigation of the influence of aging and compaction effort on low temperature performance of asphalt mixture containing different percentage of RAP

Abstract

Substituting the waste Reclaimed Asphalt Pavement (RAP) materials by virgin aggregates not only decrease the need for utilizing virgin aggregate, but also the need for new binder for production of asphalt mixture decreases. As a result, it causes a decrease in environmental problems. One of the chief drawbacks of asphalt mixture is its low resistance against low temperature cracking. In this research a significant quantity of notch cracked semicircular bend specimens exposed to symmetric 3 point bend loading were implemented on various hot-mix asphalt combinations with different compositions. The impact of binder type (58–34S, 58–34 V, 58–28S, and 58–28 V), aging, compaction effort and RAP percentage on low temperature cracking resistance of different mixtures were investigated. The research findings showed that the fracture energy mixtures containing binders V is higher than binders S due to the more recovery potential of V binders in comparison to S binders. As the percentage of RAP increases, the fracture energy decreases. High traffic mix design compared with medium traffic mix design has more binder content which has higher fracture energy. Results revealed that as the percentages of RAP increases, the fracture energy decreases. It can be observed that HT level mixtures with more binder content has more potential for having more fracture energy than MT level traffic does.