Abstract
Incorporating reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) into asphalt mixtures achieves astonishingly environmental and economic benefits. However, there is hesitation to use higher RAP content due to the concern regarding the deterioration in pavement performance, especially the cracking resistance. Basalt fiber has been considered an effective additive to reinforce the performance of asphalt mixtures and, subsequently, the reinforcement effect is also expected for high-RAP content mixtures. Therefore, this study investigated the effect of basalt fiber on the pavement performance of asphalt mixtures with 0%, 30%, 40%, and 50% RAP contents against high-temperature performance, moisture susceptibility, low-temperature and intermediate-temperature cracking resistance, based on the wheel-tracking test, the uniaxial penetration test, the freeze-thaw splitting test, the low-temperature bending beam test, the semicircular bend fracture test and the indirect tensile asphalt cracking test, respectively. In addition, a performance-space diagram was developed to determine the mixture performance shift caused by basalt fiber. The results showed that adding basalt fiber compensated for the detrimental effect caused by RAP, leading to significant enhancement in moisture susceptibility and low- and intermediate-temperature cracking resistance of mixtures with high RAP content, along with the enhancement in high-temperature performance, indicating that basalt fiber can contribute to the use of high RAP content.
Highlights
The application of reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) in asphalt mixtures has been vigorously encouraged and promoted over the past decades due to the desirable environmental benefit, along with the cost reduction [1,2,3,4]
The dynamic stability of asphalt mixtures increased from 3235 passes/mm to 4320 passes/mm when RAP content increased from 0% to 50%
Compared to the control samples without basalt fiber, the dynamic stability values of fiber-reinforced asphalt mixtures with 0%, 30%, 40%, and 50% RAP increased by 24.5%, 18.3%, 13.4% and 13.0%, respectively
Summary
The application of reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) in asphalt mixtures has been vigorously encouraged and promoted over the past decades due to the desirable environmental benefit, along with the cost reduction [1,2,3,4]. The use of RAP has been promoted from low-value use (as unbound layer materials [5], etc.) to high-value use (as surface materials, etc.), and became commonplace in some developed countries. Chinese transport agencies are making great efforts to achieve a RAP use rate of over 80% by the end of 2020 [7]. The RAP dosage used in asphalt mixtures is still surprisingly low. By weight of total mixture, the RAP dosage is still around 20% in most states in the USA [6]. RAP is not even commonly used in the surface layer of asphalt pavement in China
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