Relating asphalt binder elastic recovery properties to HMA cracking and fracture properties

Abstract Cracking in HMA pavements reduces the long-term durability of HMA pavements and undesirably increases the costs of road maintenance. Asphalt binder as one of major constituents of HMA plays an important role in the HMA cracking performance. Previous studies have indicated that higher elastic recovery of asphalt binder was favored to resist fatigue cracking. This study was undertaken to further investigate the relationships between the asphalt binder elastic recovery (ER) properties and the HMA cracking resistance and fracture properties, measured in the laboratory. The ER test (or ductility test) and MSCR test were used to measure and quantify the asphalt binder ER properties. Similarly, the OT and IDT tests were used to measure and quantify the HMA cracking resistance (cycles to crack failure) and fracture properties (tensile strength, fracture energy [FE], and FE Index), respectively. The test results indicated that HMA mixes with high ER properties (⩾59%) showed superior fracture properties and better laboratory cracking resistance performance, i.e., higher FE Index values (>1.0) and more load cycles to crack failure (>500 OT cycles), respectively. By contrast, no definitive performance trends were found for the HMA mixes with low ER properties (

[1]  L. Walubita,et al.  Relating asphalt binder elastic recovery properties to HMA crack modeling and fatigue life prediction , 2016 .

[2]  Robert L. Lytton,et al.  The Overlay Tester (OT): Comparison with Other Crack Test Methods and Recommendation for Surrogate Crack Tests , 2013 .

[3]  F. Bonemazzi,et al.  Characteristics of Polymers and Polymer-Modified Binders , 1996 .

[4]  Mohamed Rehan Karim,et al.  An overview of crumb rubber modified asphalt , 2012 .

[5]  Tom Scullion,et al.  New Generation Mix-Designs: Laboratory-Field Testing and Modifications to Texas HMA Mix-Design Procedures , 2013 .

[6]  Yvonne Becker,et al.  Polymer modified asphalt , 2001 .

[7]  M. Tia,et al.  GUIDELINES FOR USE OF MODIFIERS IN SUPERPAVE MIXTURES: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND VOLUME 1 OF 3 VOLUMES: EVALUATION OF SBS MODIFIER , 2004 .

[8]  Ali Fatemi,et al.  Cumulative fatigue damage and life prediction theories: a survey of the state of the art for homogeneous materials , 1998 .

[9]  J. Soares,et al.  Characterization and thermal behavior of polymer-modified asphalt , 2004 .

[10]  Pravat Karki,et al.  Use of the MSCR test to characterize the asphalt binder properties relative to HMA rutting performance – A laboratory study , 2015 .

[11]  W Arand,et al.  LOW TEMPERATURE CRACKING IN POLYMER MODIFIED BINDERS , 1993 .

[12]  B. Birgisson,et al.  Polymer modification of bitumen : Advances and challenges , 2014 .

[13]  Alexander J. Austerman,et al.  Evaluation of Binder Elastic Recovery on HMA Fatigue Cracking using Continuum Damage and Overlay Test Based Analyses , 2011 .

[14]  L F Walubita,et al.  Characterising the ductility and fatigue crack resistance potential of asphalt mixes based on the laboratory direct tensile strength test , 2010 .