Improvements in Physical and Mechanical Properties of Asphalt by Addition of Low-cost Few-layers Graphene (FLG)

Abstract

Physical and mechanical properties of asphalt have been improved by adding of few-layers graphene (FLG). FLG was obtained from a simple, low-cost and environmentally friendly liquid shear exfoliation method using a kitchen blender. The melted asphalt at temperature of 150oC was mixed with FLG at various concentrations (10 mg/ml, 20 mg/ml and 30 mg/ml) and contents (0 wt%, 3 wt%, 6 wt%, and 9 wt%) by weight of asphalt. The homogenized mixture was taken for penetration and softening point tests, while the mixing with aggregates was carried out for Marshall stability and asphalt concrete flow tests. The characteristics of void in mixture (VIM), void filled with asphalt (VFA), and void in mineral aggregate (VMA) were also investigated. The penetration values decreased (or the asphalt hardness increased) linearly with increasing of FLG concentration and FLG content. The softening point of asphalt increased as the increasing of FLG concentration and FLG content in asphalt with the average softening point increase of about 5%. The Marshall stability and asphalt concrete flow increased with increasing of FLG concentrations and FLG content. However, the addition of FLG did not affect the VIM, VFA or VMA values. Overall, the addition of FLG improves the physical and mechanical properties of asphalt and has promising prospects due to low-cost and eco-friendly nature of FLG.

Investigation to enhanced Physical and Mechanical Properties of Road Pavement in Asphalt Incorporating Low-Density Waste Plastic Bags

“…It can be seen that, generally the penetration values decrease (or asphalt hardness increase) linearly with the increase of weight percentage of WPB in asphalt. These tendence was observed with FLG addition in asphalt by (Amri et al, 2023). These results suggest that the mechanical behavior of the asphalt-WBP mix will very quickly be dominated by the properties of the WBP, especially above 20% doping.…”

“…From a flow perspective, the binder rate of 6.2% remains a good value for the formulation of asphalt concrete. (Amri et al, 2023) found that the asphalt concrete flow value increases with the increase in FLG content, with an average increase of around 3.5% to 17.7% compared to conventional asphalt without the addition of FLG which has a ow value of 3.8 mm. This indicated that, contrary to FLG, WPB causes a decrease in the elasticity of asphalt.…”

“…We note that as the rate of dope incorporated into the 35-50 bitumen increases, the softening point of the binder increases. This effect was funded by (Amri et al, 2023) with FLG concentrations and FLG contents in asphalt. They reported that the increase of asphalt-FLG softening point towards the softening point of asphalt without the addition of FLG averagely is about 5%.…”

“…The increases of Marshall stability compared to the conventional asphalt stability without WPB addition are about 88,89% when 0 to 20% WPB are added. (Amri et al, 2023) reported that their FLG could increase the Marshal stability value of asphalt are about 5.1% to 17.6% when 3 to 9% FLG are added at concentrations of 10 to 30 mg/ml. This effect was also observed by (Yanuar et al, 2021).…”

“…Asphalt, one of the oldest engineering materials (Behnood & Gharehveran, 2019), is typically composed of aggregates and asphalt cement (Amri et al, 2023). Nowadays, asphalt is mainly used as a binder for mineral aggregates in the paving industry (Behnood & Gharehveran, 2019).…”