No abstract

The study describes the laboratory assessment (physical and rheological properties) of the binders (PG 64-22 and PG 76-22) modified with Styrene Butadiene Rubber (SBR), and a comprehensive comparison between these two modified binder types. PG 64-22 and PG 76-22 were used as base binders. Both of the base binders were blended with SBR at four different percentages of content (0%, 4%, 6%, and 8% by the weight of the binder). The base and modified binders were artificially short-term and long-term aged using a rolling thin film oven (RTFO) and pressure aging vessel (PAV) procedures. Superpave binder tests were conducted on the SBR modified binder using rotational viscometer (RV), dynamic shear rheometer (DSR), and bending beam rheometer (BBR). In depth rutting performance was investigated using Multiple Stress Creep Recovery (MSCR). The results of this study indicated that (1) the addition of SBR into both binders increased the viscosity and polymer modified asphalt (PMA) binders observed to have more significant effect on its viscosity property; (2) the higher the SBR content, the better the rutting resistance of the binder and it is observed that the effect is prominent on the control binder; (3) MSCR test results showed that the SBR modified binders improved the binder percentage recovery and found to have a more significant effect on the PG 76-22 binder compared to PG 64-22; and (4) both the control PG 64-22 and PMA PG 76-22 binders resulted in similar trends on the cracking properties and were found to have insignificant effects due to the addition of an SBR modifier.

Crumb rubber modifier (CRM) binders easily suffer from instability at high temperatures, with many suggestions being developed to evaluate their storage stability. However, much uncertainty around CRM binders still exists regarding the relationship between mixing methods and experiments in order to calculate the separation index. In this study, a laboratory investigation into how CRM binders behave regarding storage stability using different mixing methods and experiments was conducted. The CRM asphalt binder in this study was prepared through a wet mixing process with the addition of 5% and 10% crumb rubber modifier (by weight) at 200 °C. The three main modification methods were method A: high-shear mixing (8000 rpm) for 2 h, method B: low mixing (300 rpm) for 8 h, and method C: high-shear mixing (8000 rpm) for 2 h + low mixing (300 rpm) for 6 h. In addition, the effect of separation index (SI) on storage stability was assessed, measuring viscosity, G*/sin δ, and percentage recovery. In general, the results of this study revealed that method C appeared to have the most prominent effect on decreasing the difference between the values of the top and bottom parts; the results for 5% CRM using method C showed that there were no differences among the values for the top, middle, and bottom parts; from the MSCR test, method C was effective in decreasing the difference between the values of the top and bottom parts. It was observed that method C improved storage stability. However, the results for percentage recovery were relatively higher than the separation index when using rotational viscosity and G*/sin δ.

This paper conveys the laboratory investigation of the storage stability of CRM binder as a basic study. The CRM binder was produced through the wet process in the laboratory. The percentages of crumb rubber used for rubberized binder were 5%, 10%, 15% and 20%. The samples were prepared according to ASTM D7173. In order to evaluate the properties of each part of the binders, tests were carried out through the rotational viscosity and viscoelasticity, and the separation index was assessed with the G*/sin δ and %rec. In general, the results of this study revealed that (1) the conditioned CRM binders appeared to have higher viscosity in the bottom part compared to the middle and top parts.; (2) similar to the viscosity results, the CRM binders after conditioning showed the highest G*/sin δ value in the bottom part; (3) from the MSCR test, Jnr and % rec values are observed to have a similar trend with G*/sin δ results, although some of the data were not measured due to the higher load than the DSR test; and (4) it was discovered that the SI from G*/sin δ generally used was suitable for evaluating the storage stability of CRM asphalt binders, compared to the SI from % rec.

The demand for urgently replacing the problematic 4,4′-(propane-2,2-diyl)diphenol (BPA) color developer in thermal papers is increasing recently. In order to develop alternative color developer materials to BPA, novolac-type polymeric developer materials that not only exhibit excellent color-developing performance but also are difficult to be absorbed by the human skin were introduced. The target novolac polymers, BPAEP-FN, were synthesized by copolymerizing BPA and 4-ethylphenol monomer with various ratios. Among the prepared BPAEP-FN polymers, the BPAEP-FN_64 polymer showed highly improved static sensitivity as compared to a simple BPA-novolac polymer that contained no 4-ethylphenol at all. Moreover, it is possible to effectively adjust the static sensitivity of BPAEP-FN_64 thermal papers by using sensitizers such as diphenyl sulfone and 4-benzylbiphenyl and we are able to obtain static sensitivity similar to that of BPA thermal papers. In particular, BPAEP-FN_64 thermal papers showed superior durability to BPA thermal papers under harsh thermal conditions of the external environment.