Mechanical properties of epoxy asphalt mixture pavement with lightweight aggregate applied on bascule bridge

The high temperature anti-rutting performance,water stability and low temperature bending property of epoxy asphalt mixture with 0%,15%,25%,40%,and 70% granulated and circular lightweight aggregates by weight are tested,respectively.The dynamic responses under the vehicle load and in the opening process are analyzed to obtain the mechanical responses of pavements by using the finite element method.The complicated structure including a steel deck and a waterproof adhesive layer is made to verify the bond strength of the 2451-type epoxy asphalt binder.Research results show that the epoxy asphalt mixtures with lightweight aggregate replacement percentages from 0% to 70% all satisfy the requirements for steel bridge pavements.The epoxy asphalt mixture with a 70% circular lightweight aggregate replacement percentage is recommended because of its smaller density when compared with other epoxy asphalt mixtures.The shear stress increases with the increase in the opening angle and achieves its maximum at the maximum opening angle of 85°.Test results show that the Tianjin Bascule Bridge can be used for first opening after a 3 d pavement conditioning.

Performance evaluation of open-graded epoxy asphalt concrete with two nominal maximum aggregate sizes

Open-graded friction course(OGFC) is applied to pavement surfaces to increase driving safety under wet conditions, and recently, to reduce tire/pavement noise. The durability of OGFC, however, has been a concern since conventional OGFC mixes last typically less than ten years before major maintenance or rehabilitation is needed. This work investigates a new open-graded asphalt mixture that uses epoxy asphalt as binder to improve mix durability. One type of epoxy asphalt that has been successfully applied to dense-graded asphalt concrete for bridge deck paving was selected. A procedure of compacting the mix into slab specimens was developed and a series of laboratory tests were conducted to evaluate the performance of the new mix, including Cantabro loss, permeability, friction, shear strength, and wheel rutting tests. Results show superior overall performance of the open-graded epoxy asphalt mix compared to conventional open-graded asphalt mix. There are also preliminary indications that the OGFC mix with 4.75-mm NMAS gradation can improve the resistance performance to raveling, while the OGFC mix with 9.5-mm NMAS gradation can improve the performance of surface friction at a high slip speed.

Effects of flat and elongated aggregates on the performance of porous asphalt mixture

Four fat and elongated(F&E)contents(0%,original,30%,and 40%)were investigated to evaluate the effects of F&Eparticles on the performance of porous asphalt mixture(P A).Laboratory tests including volumetric determination,two-dimensional image analysis,Cantabro loss tests,breakdown tests,and permeability tests were conducted to evaluate the volumetric properties,the state of stone-onstone contact,durability,skeleton stability and permeability of PA,respectively.The test results indicate that the F&E content was a significant factor for total air voids,aggregate skeleton break down,and permeability.The functionality,rutting resistance,long-term durability,and skeleton stability decrease with the increase of F&E content since F&E aggregates in porous asphalt mixtures have a tendency to breakdown.Compared with traditional dense graded mixtures,PA is more sensitive to the F&E content due to an open graded aggregate structure.Therefore,the stricter requiement for F&E content should be met for porous asphalt mixtures than the one for traditional deese graded mixture.

Effect of aggregate gradation on low temperature performance of asphalt paving mixtures

Low temperature cracking has become one of the important factors that diminish asphalt pavement's ride quality and service life.Especially in cold region,cracking caused by low temperature is the main distress form.This paper discussed the effect of aggregate gradation on the low temperature performance in asphalt paving mixtures.A total of 11 asphalt mixtures with 11 different aggregate gradations and one asphalt binder content were studied.Volumetric properties of the coarse aggregate and asphalt mixtures showed aggregate grading has a significant impact on the degree of aggregate interlock in asphalt mixtures.A trend is existed in the low temperature performance with the change of gradation.With the aid of mathematic statistics,it indicates gradation affects the low temperature performance significantly.The findings also indicate the relationship between the degree of aggregate interlock in asphalt mixtures and the low temperature performance:With the stone-to-stone contact developed,the mixture has a high energy to resist contract and deformation at low temperature.The properties of fine aggregate and asphalt play an important part in resisting low temperature cracking in floating structure.But it provides lower energy to resist low temperature cracking compared to the skeleton structure.

Effects of Aggregate Size and Specimen Scale on Asphalt Mixture Cracking Using a Micromechanical Simulation Approach

A micromechanical model based on discrete element method（DEM） was employed to investigate the effects of aggregate size and specimen scale on the cracking behavior of asphalt mixture. An algorithm for generating three-dimensional aggregates that can reflect the realistic geometry such as shape, size and fracture surface of aggregate particles was developed using a user-defined procedure coded with FISH language in particle flow code in three-dimensions（PFC3 D）. The parallel-bond model（PBM）, linear contact model（LCM）, and slip model（SM）, whose sets of micro parameters were obtained by comparing experimental tests with numerical simulation results, were used to characterize the internal contact behavior of asphalt mixture. Digital asphalt mixture specimens were used to simulate the effects of aggregate size and specimen scale on the cracking behavior by the indirect tensile（IDT） test. Some conclusions can be drawn as follows： Both cracks and IDT strength decrease with increasing aggregate size. However, the heterogeneity of contact-force distribution augments with increasing aggregate size, especially with 13.2-16 mm aggregate. The aggregate size of 4.75-9.5 mm dominates in forming skeleton structure for asphalt mixture. The IDT strength decreases and cracks augment with increasing sample scale. The crack growth can be well interpreted from the perspective of energy analysis. The conclusions show that the proposed micromechanical model is suitable for the simulation of crack propagation. This study provides an assistant tool to further study the cracking behavior of particle-reinforced composites material such as asphalt mixture and Portland cement concrete.

Laboratory performance of stone matrix asphalt mixtures with two aggregate gradations

Stone matrix asphalt （SMA） is a gap-graded bituminous mixture which can be used in surface layer of high volume pavements. The mixture has higher concen- trations of coarse aggregates, providing strength and rut resistance to the mixture, and higher asphalt content giving durability. There must be a proper stone-to-stone contact between the coarse aggregates of SMA, and hence aggre- gate gradation is an important factor in this mixture. In the current study, two aggregate gradations, with nominal maximum aggregate sizes （NMAS） 16 and 13 mm were adopted to prepare SMA mixtures and their laboratory performances were compared. Polymer-modified bitumen （PMB） was used as the binder material and no stabilising additive was used, since drain down was within permissible limits for both mixtures with PMB. Conventional cylin- drical specimens were prepared in superpave gyratory compactor with bitumen contents 5.0 %, 5.5 %, 6.0 %, 6.5 % and 7.0 % by weight of aggregates, and volumetric and Marshall properties were determined. Tensile strength, behaviour to repeated loading etc. were checked for cylindrical specimens prepared at optimum bitumen con- tent, whereas specially prepared slab specimens were used to check the rutting resistance of SMA mixtures. From the laboratory study, it was observed that, out of the two SMA mixtures, the one with NMAS 16 mm performed better compared to the other. These improved properties may be attributed towards the larger coarse aggregate sizes in the mixture.

Degradation behavior of aggregate skeleton in stone matrix asphalt mixture

The degradation behavior of aggregate skeleton in stone matrix asphalt mixture was investigated based on theoretical analysis, laboratory test and field materials evaluation. A stress-transfer model was established to provide the fundamental understanding of the stress distribution and degradation mechanism of stone matrix asphalt (SMA) aggregate skeleton. Based on the theoretical analysis, crushing test and superpave gyratory compactor (SGC) test were used to evaluate the degradation behavior of aggregate skeleton of SMA. To verify the laboratory test results, gradation analysis was also conducted for the field materials extracted from SMA pavements after long-time service. The results indicate that the degradation of SMA aggregate skeleton is not random but has fixed internal trend and mechanism. Special rule is found for the graded fine aggregates generated from coarse aggregate breakdown and the variation of 4.75 mm aggregate is found to play a key role in the graded aggregates to form well-balanced skeleton to bear external loading. The variation of 4.75 mm aggregate together with the breakdown ratio of aggregate gradation can be used to characterize the degradation behavior of aggregate skeleton. The crushing test and SGC test are proved to be promising in estimating the degradation behavior of SMA skeleton.

Effect of Aggregate Gradation on the Properties of 3D Printed Recycled Coarse Aggregate Concrete

A simplex centroid design method was employed to design the gradation of recycled coarse aggregate.The bulk density was measured while the specific surface area and average excess paste thickness were calculated with different gradations.The fluidity,dynamic yield stress,static yield stress,printed width,printed inclination,compressive strength and ultrasonic wave velocity of 3D printed recycled aggregate concrete(3DPRAC)were further studied.The experimental results demonstrate that,with the increase of small-sized aggregate(4.75-7 mm)content,the bulk density initially increases and then decreases,and the specific surface area gradually increases.The average excess paste thickness fluctuates with both bulk density and specific surface area.The workability of 3DPRAC is closely related to the average excess paste thickness.With an increase in average paste thickness,there is a gradual decrease in dynamic yield stress,static yield stress and printed inclination,accompanied by an increase in fluidity and printed width.The mechanical performance of 3DPRAC closely correlates with the bulk density.With an increase in the bulk density,there is an increase in the ultrasonic wave velocity,accompanied by a slight increase in the compressive strength and a significant decrease in the anisotropic coefficient.Furthermore,an index for buildability failure of 3DPRAC based on the average excess paste thickness is proposed.

Underwater Pulse Waveform Recognition Based on Hash Aggregate Discriminant Network

Underwater pulse waveform recognition is an important method for underwater object detection.Most existing works focus on the application of traditional pattern recognition methods,which ignore the time-and space-varying characteristics in sound propagation channels and cannot easily extract valuable waveform features.Sound propagation channels in seawater are time-and space-varying convolutional channels.In the extraction of the waveform features of underwater acoustic signals,the effect of high-accuracy underwater acoustic signal recognition is identified by eliminating the influence of time-and space-varying convolutional channels to the greatest extent possible.We propose a hash aggregate discriminative network(HADN),which combines hash learning and deep learning to minimize the time-and space-varying effects on convolutional channels and adaptively learns effective underwater waveform features to achieve high-accuracy underwater pulse waveform recognition.In the extraction of the hash features of acoustic signals,a discrete constraint between clusters within a hash feature class is introduced.This constraint can ensure that the influence of convolutional channels on hash features is minimized.In addition,we design a new loss function called aggregate discriminative loss(AD-loss).The use of AD-loss and softmax-loss can increase the discriminativeness of the learned hash features.Experimental results show that on pool and ocean datasets,which were collected in pools and oceans,respectively,by using acoustic collectors,the proposed HADN performs better than other comparative models in terms of accuracy and mAP.

Review and Comprehensive Analysis of Deaggregation and Separation Methods for Asphaltene Aggregates

Asphaltenes generally exist in the form of molecular aggregates in crude oil or in petroleum residues,and asphaltene aggregates can usually cause serious problems to oil exploitation,transportation,and processing.Achieving deaggregation and separation of asphaltene aggregates is a premise and basis for molecular characterization and processing of heavy oils.Aiming at the intermolecular interactions in asphaltene molecular aggregates,it has proposed and summarized that aspahltene aggregates can be subject to deaggregation by means of five approaches,including solvent diluting,removing active sites,moderate heating,ultrasonication and on-line molecular collision.Moreover,asphaltenes can be further separated to narrow fractions for molecular-level research based on polarity difference,molecular size difference,acid-base properties,and reactivity difference.

Aggregate gradation design of asphalt mixture with stone-to-stone contact based on fuller's model

Based on Fuller＇s model, a gradation design is presented for the load-carrying capacity of an asphalt mixture with stone-to-stone contact. The coarse aggregate gradation, fine aggregate and filler gradation are respectively designed for their different effects on an asphalt mixture with stone-to-stone contact. The equation of coarse aggregate gradation is deduced from the Fuller＇s model. Fine aggregate gradation is calculated by using Fuller＇s equation. The asphalt mixture with the 16 mm maximum size of aggregate is verified. When the coefficient of coarse aggregate gradation is 0.35 and fine aggregate gradation is 0.25, the volume parameters of asphalt mixture meet the technical specifications. Moreover, the high temperature stability and crack resistance at low temperature are all well.

Clinical significance of platelet mononuclear cell aggregates in patients with sepsis and acute respiratory distress syndrome

BACKGROUND The diagnosis of sepsis combined with acute respiratory distress syndrome(ARDS)has increased owing to the enhanced awareness among medical profes-sionals and the continuous development of modern medical technologies,while early diagnosis of ARDS still lacks specific biomarkers.One of the main patho-genic mechanisms of sepsis-associated ARDS involves the actions of various pathological injuries and inflammatory factors,such as platelet and white blood cells activation,leading to an increase of surface adhesion molecules.These adhesion molecules further form platelet-white blood cell aggregates,including platelet-mononuclear cell aggregates(PMAs).PMAs has been identified as one of the markers of platelet activation,here we hypothesize that PMAs might play a potential biomarker for the early diagnosis of this complication.METHODS We selected 72 hospitalized patients diagnosed with sepsis as the study population between March 2019 and March 2022.Among them,30 patients with sepsis and ARDS formed the study group,while 42 sepsis patients without ARDS comprised the control group.After diagnosis,venous blood samples were imme-diately collected from all patients.Flow cytometry was employed to analyze the expression of PMAs,platelet neutrophil aggregates(PNAs),and platelet aggregates(PLyAs)in the serum.Additionally,the Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation(APACHE)II score was calculated for each patient,and receiver operating characteristic curves were generated to assess diagnostic value.RESULTS The study found that the levels of PNAs and PLyAs in the serum of the study group were higher than those in the control group,but the difference was not statistically significant(P>0.05).However,the expression of PMAs in the serum of the study group was significantly upregulated(P<0.05)and positively correlated with the APACHE II score(r=0.671,P<0.05).When using PMAs as a diagnostic indicator,the area under the curve value was 0.957,indicating a high diagnostic value(P<0.05).Furthermore,the optimal cutoff value was 8.418%,with a diagnostic sensitivity of 0.819 and specificity of 0.947.CONCLUSION In summary,the serum levels of PMAs significantly increase in patients with sepsis and ARDS.Therefore,serum PMAs have the potential to become a new biomarker for clinically diagnosing sepsis complicated by ARDS.

Mechanical Behavior Based on Aggregates Microstructure of Ultra-high Performance Concrete

We developed ultra-high performance concrete(UHPC)incorporating mullite sand and brown corundum sand(BCS),and the quartz sand UHPC was utilized to prepare for comparison.The properties of compressive strength,elastic modulus,ultrasonic pulse velocity,flexural strength,and toughness were investigated.Scanning electron microscopy and nanoindentation were also conducted to reveal the underlying mechanisms affecting macroscopic performance.Due to the superior interface bonding properties between mullite sand and matrix,the compressive strength and flexural toughness of UHPC have been significantly improved.Mullite sand and BCS aggregates have higher stiffness than quartz sand,contributing to the excellent elastic modulus exhibited by UHPC.The stiffness and volume of aggregates have a more significant impact on the elastic modulus of UHPC than interface performance,and the latter contributes more to the strength of UHPC.This study will provide a reference for developing UHPC with superior elastic modulus for structural engineering.

Straw mulching alters the composition and loss of dissolved organic matter in farmland surface runoff by inhibiting the fragmentation of soil small macroaggregates

Straw mulching is a widespread practice for reducing the soil carbon loss caused by erosion.However,the effects of straw mulching on dissolved organic matter(DOM)runoff loss from black soil are not well studied.How straw mulching affects the composition and loss of runoff DOM by changing soil aggregates remains largely unclear.Here,a straw mulching treatment was compared to a no mulching treatment(as a control)on sloping farmland with black soil erosion in Northeast China.We divided the soil into large macroaggregates(>2 mm),small macroaggregates(0.25-2 mm),and microaggregates(<0.25 mm).After five rain events,the effects of straw mulching on the concentration(characterized by dissolved organic carbon(DoC)and composition(analyzed by fluorescence spectroscopy)of runoff and soil aggregate DOM were studied.The results showed that straw mulching reduced the runoff amount by 54.7%.Therefore,although straw mulching increased the average DOc concentration in runoff,it reduced the total runoff DOM loss by 48.3%.The composition of runoff DOM is similar to that of soil,as both contain humic-like acid and protein-like components.With straw mulching treatment,the protein-like components in small macroaggregates accumulated and the protein-like components in runoff declined with rain events.Fluorescence spectroscopy technology may help in understanding the hydrological paths of rain events by capturing the dynamic changes of runoff and soil DOM characteristics.A variation partitioning analysis(VPA)indicated that the DOM concentration and composition of microaggregates explained 68.2%of the change in runoff DOM from no mulching plots,while the change in runoff DOM from straw mulching plots was dominated by small macroaggregates at a rate of 55.1%.Taken together,our results demonstrated that straw mulching reduces the fragmentation of small macroaggregates and the loss of microaggregates,thus effecting DOM compositions in soil and reducing the DOM loss in runoff.These results provide a theoretical basis for reducing carbon loss in sloping farmland.

Evaluation Indices of Interaction Ability of Asphalt and Aggregate Based on Rheological Characteristics

In order to find a parameter as the evaluation index that can capture the effect of the interaction between asphalt and aggregate, the rheological properties of asphalt mastics using two kinds of asphalts and four kinds of aggregates under different filler-asphalt ratios were measured by a dynamic shear rheometer （DSR）. Moreover, four rheological parameters of K.Ziegel-B, Luis Ibrarra-A, complex shear modulus ΔG＊and complex viscosity Δη＊ for evaluating the interaction ability were studied. Results indicate that all the four parameters can characterize the interaction ability of asphalt and aggregate correctly and feasibly. Through the comparison of sensitivities and physical meanings of the four parameters, K.Ziegel-B with high sensitivity and exact physical meaning is finally selected as the evaluation index for interaction ability of asphalt and aggregate.

Polycrystalline ZSM-5 Aggregates Induced by Seed and Catalytic Performance in Methanol to Hydrocarbon

Synthesis of ZSM-5 zeolite typically utilizes small molecule polyamines or quaternary ammonium salts as organic structure guiding agent(OSDA).By contrast,the OSDA-free hydrothermal synthesis system eliminates the use of organic templates and the subsequent calcination procedure.This not only reduces the cost of synthesis,but also prevents environmental pollution from the combustion of organic templates,representing an eco-friendly approach.Despite this,literature suggests that even so-called template-free synthesis systems often involve trace amount of organic substances like alcohol.In the present work,a calcined commercial ZSM-5 zeolite was served as seed,with sodium aluminate as aluminum source and silica sol as silicon source,ensuring an entirely template-free synthesis system.Polycrystalline ZSM-5 aggregates consisted of rod-like nanocrystals were successfully prepared in the completely OSDA-free system.Effects of the Si/Al ratio in ZSM-5 seed,dosage and crystallization conditions such as crystallization temperature and crystallization time on ZSM-5 synthesis were investigated.The results show that a highly crystallinity ZSM-5 aggregate consisting of primary nano-sized crystals less than 100 nm is produced from a gel precursor with 5.6%(in mass)seed after hydrothermal treatment for 48 h.Furthermore,the Si/Al ratio in ZSM-5 seed has little effect on the topological structure and pore structure of the synthesized samples.However,the seeds with a low Si/Al ratio facilitate faster crystallization of zeolite and enhance the acidity,especially the strong acid centers,of the catalyst.The catalytic performance of the synthesized polycrystalline ZSM-5 was evaluated during dehydration of methanol and compared with a commercial reference ZSM-5r.The results exhibit that as compared with the reference catalyst,the fabricated sample has a longer catalytic lifetime(16 h vs 8 h)attributed to its hierarchical pores derived from the loosely packed primary nanoparticles.Additionally,the prepared polycrystalline catalyst also exhibits a higher aromatics selectivity(28.1%-29.8%vs 26.5%).

High-efficiency Carbonation Modification Methods of Recycled Coarse Aggregates

To solve the problem of only surface carbonation and realize high-efficiency carbonation of recycled coarse aggregate,the method of carbonated recycled coarse aggregate with nano materials pre-soaking was first put forward.The carbonation effect of modified recycled coarse aggregate with three different carbonation methods was evaluated,and water absorption,apparent density and crush index of modified recycled coarse aggregate were measured.Combined with XRD,SEM,and MIP microscopic analysis,the high-efficiency carbonation strengthening mechanism of modified recycled coarse aggregate was revealed.The experimental results show that,compared with the non-carbonated recycled coarse aggregate,the physical and microscopic properties of carbonated recycled coarse aggregate are improved.The method of carbonation with nano-SiO_(2) pre-soaking can realize the high-efficiency carbonation of recycled coarse aggregate,for modified recycled coarse aggregate with the method,water absorption is reduced by 23.03%,porosity is reduced by 44.06%,and the average pore diameter is 21.82 nm.The high-efficiency carbonation strengthening mechanism show that the pre-socked nano-SiO_(2) is bound to the hydration product Ca(OH)_(2) of the old mortar with nano-scale C-S-H,which can improve the CO_(2) absorption rate,accelerate the carbonation reaction,generate more stable CaCO_(3) and nano-scale silica gel,and bond to the dense three-dimensional network structure to realize the bidirectional enhancement of nano-materials and pressurized carbonation.It is concluded that the method of carbonation with nano-SiO_(2) pre-soaking is a novel high-efficiency carbonation modification of recycled coarse aggregate.

Fractal Dimension Analysis of the Fine Aggregate Gradation of Interlocking Skeleton Asphalt Mixture

By analyzing the fine aggregate gradation scales from standards,fine aggregate in the asphalt mixture is regarded as a whole research object and fractal dimensions X of the samples were obtained by linear regression and（AC-13）is 2.43-2.56,Sup-13 is 2.28-2.54,SMA-13 is 2.66-2.88 and SAC-13 is 2.54-2.73.In the dense gradation mixture,there are little different between fractal dimensions of coarse and fine aggregates but it makes sense for skeleton asphalt mixture.For a given coarse aggregate gradation and the same percentage of coarse aggregates,the compressive strengths and splitting strengths of the asphalt mixture are studied when the fractal dimensions are selected as 2.60,2.65 and 2.70,respectively.When asphalt-stone ratio is less than optimal asphalt-stone ratio,the higher compressive strength is,the bigger X can be gotten.When asphalt-stone ratio is larger than optimal asphalt-stone ratio,little difference of compressive strength can be observed under these three conditions.The largest splitting strength can be got when X is 2.65,and larger splitting strength can be observed with the ascending of the asphalt-stone ratio.

Effect of Modification Treatment on Chloride Ions Permeability and Microstructure of Recycled Brick-mixed Aggregate Concrete

The modification methods of pozzolan slurry combined with sodium silicate and silicon-based additive were respectively adopted to treat recycled coarse brick-mixed aggregate(RCBA)in this study.The compressive strength and chloride permeability resistance of recycled aggregate concrete(RAC)before and after modification treatment were tested,and the microstructure of RAC was analyzed by mercury intrusion porosimetry(MIP)and scanning electron microscopy(SEM).The results show that the physical properties of RCBA strengthened by modification treatment are improved,and the compressive strength and chloride permeability resistance of treated RAC are also significantly improved.The modification treatment optimizes the pore size distribution of RAC,which increases the number of gel pores and transition pores,and decreases the number of capillary pores and macro pores.The surface fractal dimension shows a significant correlation with chloride diffusion coefficient,indicating that the variation of chloride permeability of treated RAC is consistent with the microstructure evolution.

"Three-in-One" Ecological Development and Efficient Utilization Model of Aggregates

Green mining and the formation of an effective and efficient development model have become key issues that aggregates enterprises around the world need to solve urgently.On the basis of analyzing the development status of aggregates industry in Xiluodu area,the paper studied the main problems faced in the construction of green aggregates mines at present,and proposed a"three-in-one"ecological,intelligent and efficient green mine construction model for"ecological development","green logistics"and"solid waste recycling"of aggregates.The study has certain theoretical value and practical significance for the construction of green aggregates mine in Xiluodu area.