Road performance of waterborne unsaturated polyester concrete cold patching materials for potholes in bituminous pavement

Abstract

• A WUPC was developed as cold-patching materials for potholes. • The composition proportion and preparation process of WUPC was investigated based on the Marshall design procedure. • The road performance of WUPC was analyzed through rutting, water damage resistance, UV aging and fatigue resistance test, etc. • The feasibility and advantages for WUPC as cold-patching materials in bituminous pavement maintenance was proved. Cold-patching materials are extensively applied to the repairing of potholes and localized distresses involving roadway maintenance operations. Considering that there has been only few research on the performance amelioration of cold-mixing and cold-patching materials concerning the characteristics of slow strength formation, low bonding and high-temperature performance, this study proposed a waterborne unsaturated polyester concrete (WUPC) cold-patching material for potholes, and determined the composition proportion and preparation process based on the Marshall design procedure as well as the contrastive analysis on the experimental results in relation to Marshall test, cohesion test, rutting test, low temperature bending test, moisture-damage resistance test, ultraviolet radiation aging test and anti-fatigue property test. The results demonstrated that WUPC with the optimal resin-stone ratio possessed the excellent deformation resistance, moisture susceptibility and fatigue resistance. With the purpose of guaranteeing the construction reliability and standard requirement, the allowable reserved time and traffic opening time were determined as 3.5–4 h and 2 h, respectively. The study proved the feasibility and advantages for the investigation utilizing WUPC as cold-patching materials in bituminous pavement maintenance.