Durable Asphalt Pavements Are Self Healing

The traffic volume and the number of heavy vehicles are growing continuously. Considering the continuous traffic flow and the limited time available for road maintenance,it is very important to design a durable pavement system. Asphalt pavements with a healing capability are believed to be very useful since they can extend the pavement service life thanks to rest periods and hot summers. In order to design durable asphalt pavements,research in understanding and upgrading the self-healing capability of bituminous materials in time is of major importance. The self healing capability of bituminous mastic was evaluated in this research with a direct tension healing test. In the test program,different healing times,crack status and modifications were applied. The results indicate that elastic recovery and flow capacity are important factors for the self healing capability of bituminous materials at different crack phases as simulated with the direct tension test.

Environmental Concern of Using Coal Tar in Road Engineering and Its Possible Alternatives

Coal tar,a by-product from the destructive distillation of coal in coking oven,is widely used in road engineering for its excellent adhesion and fuel resistance properties,especially for pavement surface treatments in gas stations and airports. However,coal tar has a high Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (or PAHs) content,which makes it toxic. In 1985,the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has proved that coal tar is carcinogenic to humans. Research showed that Coal Tar-based Sealers (CTS) contribute to the majority of PAHs pollution in the water environment.Because of this environmental concern,CTS are not allowed in many developed countries in the USA and Europe. In contrast,coal tar is still used for road engineering in China and is even used increasingly.This paper gives a literature review on the general information and research about environmental concern of using coal tar in road engineering. Based on the review,some possible alternatives to replace coal tar are described. These alternatives include nano-clay/epoxy modified bitumen/bitumen emulsion and waterborne polyurethane/epoxy resin,which are environmental friendly. They have the potential to perform as well as CTS,and even better in some special applications.

Waste Materials to Replace Natural Resources

A number of waste materials were studied on their application into asphalt mixtures. Materials tested were plastic waste as (soft) granular material,ceramic waste from electrical insulators,foundry sand and sintered granulate from burned household waste. Both plastic waste,crushed ceramics and large fractions of sintered household waste could be used as partial replacement for coarse aggregates. Foundry sand could partially replace natural sand in asphalt mixtures. The first step of the study was to find out if the waste materials could satisfy basic requirements and for some if their leaching behavior was acceptable. In the next phase mixtures were designed and mechanical tests were done on several mixtures with waste components to determine indirect tensile strength,stiffness,fatigue. In order to estimate the water sensitivity of some mixtures,retained indirect tension tests were done. The properties are reported and compared with each other and reference mixtures. From the research it becomes clear that it takes a lot of work to replace virgin materials in asphalt mixtures with waste materials.

Assessing the Resilient Behavior of Recycled Mix-granulate with Repeated Load CBR Testing

A new characterization technique,a repeated load CBR test,was used to evaluate the resilient properties recycled mix-granulate unbound base material. This is a mixture of crushed concrete and crushed masonry,so recycled demolition waste,this is used on a wide scale in the Netherlands as road base material. The repeated load CBR test,done with standard CBR testing facility,was conducted to estimate the resilient modulus. For comparison and assessment purposes the tests were carried out with the same material conditions (composition,grading,moisture and compaction degree) as have been applied in earlier triaxial testing in the Road and Railway Engineering Laboratory,Delft University of Technology. The results indicate that the repeated load CBR test yields a good estimate of the stress dependent equivalent modulus for the sample material as bulk,which can be used in mechanistic pavement analysis in the absence of triaxial test results.

Material Research Related to Structural Pavement Failure on Motorway A32 in the Netherlands

In 2008 structural failures occurred on the asphalt pavement,with a hydraulic blast furnace slag base,of the motorway A32 (constructed in 1986～1988) in the Netherlands. Within a few weeks serious depressions occurred,in which the asphalt pavement was full of cracks and the base had a very low stiffness. In 2008 and 2009 the pavement including the base was rehabilitated over a length of 10 km.The Dutch Ministry of Public Works has initiated an extensive research into the risks of occurrence of this type of unexpected structural damages on the main road network in the Netherlands. Among many other things this research includes material research into the base material of the A32 to find the cause of the structural failure.In total 130 cores,divided over 26 cross-sections,were drilled from the A32. The cross-sections were divided over 3 areas,with a high and low base stiffness respectively and also at heaves that had grown into the pavement since 1998. In areas with high base stiffness the cores mainly contained bound base material,in areas with low base stiffness mainly granular material and at the heaves it was a mix thereof. Standard (static) and dynamic crushing tests were done on the granular material. Dynamic and monotonic indirect tensile tests and compression tests were performed on the bound material. In all cases no systematic difference was found between the mechanical properties of the blast furnace slag base material from the heavily loaded right traffic lane and the material from the other locations.It is concluded that the pavement failure on the A32 is introduced by the occurrence of full depth asphalt fatigue cracks in the pavement that was originally designed for 12 years (but was never strengthened) in areas where the base stiffness always has been low or became low through crushing (that also has resulted in the heaves). Penetrated rainwater then has weakened the base and pumping has occurred,resulting into loss of bearing capacity and decrease of volume.