Development and verification of a suitable methodology for stability assessment of bitumen adhesion promoters

Abstract

Durability of pavement structures represents one of the most important aspects increasingly followed during last years. There are many reasons for this focus, most important are related to public budget constraints and the necessity to develop or rehabilitate road infrastructure. Since many years there has been a stress on using locally available resources which is for asphalt related mainly to the aggregates. On the other hand bitumen comes from a nonrenewable resource which is used to cover many demands of the world's society. To keep it simple, remaining byproduct is then classified as bitumen what has of course impact on its qualities as well. In case of asphalt pavements durability is related to water and frost resistance of the mix. The water can cause problems if adsorbed by the aggregates. This happens if hydrophilic aggregates are used and the coating by bitumen is not good. For these reasons different additives are used to improve coating and turn the hydrophilic state to a hydrophobic one. Plenty of solutions are available on the market sometimes making the decision for not easy to make a right choice. Since decades test methods have been developed to study durability aspects, adhesion or water susceptibility. In many countries like the Czech Republic simple methods are still used, often based only on observer's visual opinion and especially often qualifying only the status of a doped bitumen/mix when being produced. This is valid for all test methods defined in EN 12697-11 and similarly also in the national test method used in the Czech Republic. Based on this fact a research project was launched to ideally define a suitable test procedure for evaluating thermal stability and long-term activity of adhesion promoters if used in the bitumen and applied in a mix. This paper is describing how the test method was selected and evaluated, what are the principles the method is based on, if applicable only to the bitumen-aggregate coating quality or analyzing the water/water-frost impacts more. Results are given for the tests done and for assessment of different adhesion promoters. Test protocol is proposed at the end defining necessary conditions.

Alternative Additives for Improving the Functional Characteristics and Performance-Based Behavior of Asphalt Mixes in the Fine-Grained Active Filler Form

“…Laboratory simulations of long-term ageing provide some imagination about the properties and behaviour of asphalt mixtures in pavement construction, but also give the possibility to verify the long-term effect of selected alternatives of traditional fillers in the asphalt mixture with respect to the selected and applied ageing method. Based on experience of the research done by the road laboratory at CTU in Prague [1,2] long-term ageing simulation was selected which is used for last 2-3 years. This method is described by prEN 12697-52 and is based on conditioning test specimens at 85 °C for 5 days.…”