The sustainable reuse of waste plastic as an alternative construction material has numerous environmental and economic advantages. New opportunities to recycle waste plastic in asphalt for road construction would mitigate landfill issues and significantly reduce global carbon emissions. With a clear aim to contribute to a more efficient reuse of waste plastic, this paper reutilized two types of waste plastic (polypropylene (PP) and polyethylene (PE)) as asphalt modifiers to improve the performance of asphalt pavement as well as to achieve the purpose of sustainable recycling waste plastic. Therefore, the optimal preparation parameters of plastic-modified asphalt were recommended by the orthogonal test. Then, the dispersion and modification mechanisms of plastic particles in plastic-modified asphalt were further studied by Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) and Thermogravimetric Differential Scanning Calorimetry (TG-DSC). The results show that the asphalt containing PP and PE shows better overall performance at high temperatures compared with the base asphalt. Furthermore, PE-modified asphalt and PP-modified asphalt exhibited optimal properties when prepared at 3000 rpm for 30 min at 170 °C. Moreover, the results of the expansion mechanism show that the main reaction process of plastic asphalt is a physical change. Finally, PP-modified asphalt and PE-modified asphalt generally perform well and are suitable for high-temperature areas. Consequentially, the results of this research promote the recycling of waste plastic, ultimately advocating the recycling of waste materials and environmental protection of pavement construction.
Cement emulsified asphalt composite material (CA composite cement) has the excellent properties of cement and emulsified asphalt cement. As a composite cementing material, cement emulsified asphalt concrete can be one of the choices of road paving materials. However, under the effect of temperature and wheel load, the performance of it may get worse; especially, the creep behavior of CA composite cement has an important influence on the stability of pavement structure. This paper mainly focuses on the research on the creep and creep recovery performance of CA composite cement, determines the raw materials and proportions of CA composite cement, and formulates experimental research programs such as creep and creep recovery tests and stress scanning tests. The creep and creep recovery test research of CA composite cement was carried out, and the influence of creep and creep recovery characteristics, temperature, and A/C on the creep mechanical properties of CA composite cement was analyzed. The results show that the creep compliance of CA composite cement decreases with the increase of aging degree, the static mechanical properties tend to be elastic as a whole, and different factors such as temperature and A/C have different effects on the viscoelastic-plastic mechanical properties of the material.
Asphalt rubber (AR) is often described as an environmentally friendly material due to the incorporation of recycled rubber from used tires and its improved service life. Its field application is influenced by many factors. In order to evaluate the impact of different factors such as crumb rubber (CR) content, stabilizer and the production method on the performance of rubber powder modified asphalt, two different matrix asphalts were prepared, the basic experiments, control variable methods and several related tests were thereafter conducted. The results showed that a moderate amount of CR could enhance the pavement performance. The suitable CR content was 20–25% for 90# matrix asphalt and 22–26% for 70# matrix asphalt. The stabilizer had a positive impact on the AR’s high temperature behavior and was beneficial to the storage of AR, but it did not make a significant influence on low temperature behavior. In addition, different methods brought certain performance differences. Though AR produced with the heat fusion method had better high-temperature performance, the rubber particles would easily disperse and melt in the asphalt during the shearing process, which gave AR more balanced physical performance. This study identifies the shearing method as the optimal choice for site construction and provides a wider application range for asphalt rubber in the road construction field. The selection of parameters depends on the construction areas and performance requirements.
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