Testing Open-Graded Bituminous Mixtures in the Hveem Stabilometer : Technical Paper

The problem of designing stable bituminous paving mixtures has resulted in the development of a number of laboratory stability tests. One of the more prominent of these was originated by Francis N Hveem and has been used by the California Division of Highways for several years. In the past, most of the bituminous mixtures tested in the Hveem Stabilometer have been of the dense-graded type (22). Consequently, the significance of Stabilometer test results obtained from the testing of open-graded mixtures is subject to some question. Since the use of the open-graded mixes has been quite widespread, especially in the State of Indiana, a laboratory investigation was conducted at Purdue University which attempted to determine the applicability of the Stabilometer to the testing of these mixtures. This paper reports a portion of the results obtained from that study.