Effects of Epoxy Resin Value on Waterborne-Epoxy-Resin-Modified Emulsified Asphalt Mixture Performance

Abstract

Although research shows that waterborne epoxy resin emulsified asphalt (WER-EA) is an environmental protection material with potential high resistance to multiple types of pavement distress, its performance is rather complicated and much affected by the curing agent and epoxy resin value. This paper serves as a follow-up study to the preliminary published research on evaluating the impact of the epoxy value and common curing agents on the performance of asphalt mixtures. Four groups of emulsified asphalt were filtered out to prepare mixture samples, and laboratory tests on mixture performance under high and low temperatures were conducted. Specifically, Marshall and rutting tests were conducted for evaluating mixture resistance to rutting under high temperatures, and indirect tensile tests were conducted to indicate resistance to cracking at low temperatures. Water stability performance was also assessed by comparing the mixture properties before and after water absorption. The results showed that the mixture with an epoxy value of 20 and curing agents using triethylenetetramine (TETA) had the best overall performance among the investigated mixtures, with the highest resistance to high-temperature deformation and water damage. However, more research should be conducted to improve the low-temperature resistance to cracking for WER-EA mixtures.