Abstract. Advances and challenges in the field of bitumen polymer modification for road construction during the last 40 years are reviewed in this paper. The history of bitumen polymer modification is described chronologically. Some popular plastomers and thermoplastic elastomers in bitumen modification are discussed regarding their advantages and disadvantages, including polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), ethylene-vinyl acetate (EVA), ethylene-butyl acrylate (EBA), styrene-butadiene-styrene (SBS), styrene-isoprenestyrene (SIS) and styrene-ethylene/butylene-styrene (SEBS). Although these polymers all improve bitumen properties to some extent, there are still some drawbacks limiting the future development of bitumen polymer modification, such as high cost, low ageing resistance and poor storage stability of polymer modified bitumen (PMB). Researchers attempted various ways to remove these drawbacks. Some technical developments for removing drawbacks are reviewed in this paper, including saturation, sulfur vulcanization, adding antioxidants, using hydrophobic clay minerals, functionalization and application of reactive polymers. The future development of polymers for bitumen modification is analyzed as well. Since it is currently challenging to perfectly achieve all expected PMB properties at the same time, some compromised recommendations are given in this paper, among which greatly enhancing the properties with an acceptably high cost, significantly reducing the cost with relatively poor properties and their combinations. Functionalization is emphasized as a promising way to enhance the properties of currently used polymers and develop new-type polymer modifiers with much greater success in the future. It is also recommended that future research on bitumen polymer modification focuses more on function development towards enhancing: adhesion with aggregates, long-term performance and recyclability.

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In this paper, a phase-field model with viscoelastic effects is developed for polymer modified bitumen (PMB) with the aim to describe and predict the PMB storage stability and phase separation behaviour. The viscoelastic effects due to dynamic asymmetry between bitumen and polymer are represented in the model by introducing a composition-dependent mobility coefficient. A double-well potential for PMB system is proposed on the basis of the Flory-Huggins free energy of mixing, with some simplifying assumptions made to take into account the complex chemical composition of bitumen. The model has been implemented in a finite element software package for pseudo-binary PMBs and calibrated with experimental observations of three different PMBs. Parametric studies have been conducted. Simulation results indicate that all the investigated model parameters, including the mobility and gradient energy coefficients, interaction and dilution parameters, have specific effects on the phase separation process of an unstable PMB. In addition to the unstable cases, the model can also describe and predict stable PMBs. Moreover, the phase inversion phenomenon with increasing polymer content in PMBs is also well reproduced by the model. This model can be the foundation of an applicable numerical tool for prediction of PMB storage stability and phase separation behaviour.

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