Performance of Polymer-Modified Asphalt Mixture with Reclaimed Asphalt Pavement

Abstract

Reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) mixtures have shown good resistance to rutting for hot-mix asphalt (HMA) pavement. Mixtures with polymer-modified binders such as styrene-butadiene-styrene (SBS) have also shown good performance against rutting and cracking. This paper presents the laboratory evaluations used to determine the rutting and cracking performance of the RAP mixtures with SBS polymer-modified binders as virgin binders. The asphalt pavement analyzer (APA) test and indirect tensile (IDT) test were conducted for the laboratory evaluation. The properties of SBS polymer-modified binders blended with recovered RAP binders were also investigated. The binder tests included G*/sinδ as the rutting parameter and G*sinδ as the cracking parameter of the Super-pave® PG grade system. The multiple stress creep and recovery test, which has recently received attention as an indicator of the rutting potential of polymer-modified asphalt binders, was also performed. RAP mixtures with SBS polymer-modified binders were fabricated containing different amounts of RAP materials: 0%, 15%, 25%, and 35%. From the APA and Superpave IDT tests, RAP mixtures with modified binders showed good performance regardless of the amounts of RAP materials in HMA. Even though the parameters, G*/sinδ and G*sinδ, and the percentage of recovery indicated the different amounts of RAP binders in polymer-modified binders, the relationship between these parameters and mixture performance was not clearly identified.