Abstract
Microwave heating has been shown to be an effective method of heating asphalt concrete and in turn healing the damage. As such, microwave heating holds great potential in rapid (1–3 min) and effective damage healing, resulting in improvement in the service life, safety, and sustainability of asphalt pavement. This study focused on the microwave healing effect on porous asphalt concrete. Steel wool fibres were incorporated into porous asphalt to improve the microwave heating efficiency, and the optimum microwave heating time was determined. Afterwards, the microwave healing efficiency was evaluated using a semi–circular bending and healing programme. The results show that the microwave healing effect is largely determined by the steel fibre content and the mix design of the porous asphalt concrete.. Besides, the uneven heating effect of microwave contributes to an unstable damage recovery in the asphalt mixture, which makes it less efficient than induction heating. However, microwaves exhibited the ability to penetrate further into the depth of the test specimen and heat beneath the surface, indicating deeper damage recovery prospects.
Highlights
This study investigated the healing effect of the microwave heating method on three
Since the microwave heating technique can heat up the asphalt structure below the surface, it is believed that if the microwave is guided to focus on the damaged site, the microwave healing system can be an effective supplement for induction healing to achieve deeper damage repairing in asphalt
This study investigated the healing effect of the microwave heating method on three different porous asphalt mixes
Summary
Research has demonstrated that temperature is the dominant factor influencing the self-healing properties of asphalt concrete, which means that an increase in the test temperature increases the self-healing rate and shortens the total time needed for full healing [6,7]. Based on this concept, methods including induction heating and microwave heating are developed to achieve self-healing in asphalt concrete by increasing the temperature [8,9]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
