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Special Issue "Asphalt Mixtures and Pavements Design"

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A special issue of Materials (ISSN 1996-1944). This special issue belongs to the section "Construction and Building Materials".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 October 2023 | Viewed by 8075

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Hancheng Dan

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Guest Editor

School of Civil Engineering, Central South University, Changsha 410075, China
Interests: functional pavement materials; intelligent compaction of subgrade and pavement; application of deep learning technology in road engineering

Dr. Wei Cao

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Guest Editor

School of Civil Engineering, Central South University, Changsha 410075, China
Interests: performance characterization of asphalt binders and mixtures; constitutive modeling; molecular dynamics simulation

Dr. Yinchuan Guo

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Guest Editor

School of Highway, Chang’an University, Xi’an 710064, China
Interests: performance characterization of asphalt mixtures and cement concrete; pavement design and maintenance

Dr. Dongya Ren

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Guest Editor

School of Civil Engineering, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu 610031, China
Interests: sustainable pavement material; pavement maintenance; non-destructive pavement evaluation

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Asphalt mixtures are composites consisting of aggregate and asphalt binder, and are the most commonly used paving materials globally. In recent years, new materials and construction techniques have been developed, such as warm-mix asphalt, cold in-place recycling, and various modifications and surface treatment methods.

This Special Issue, “Asphalt Mixtures with Reclaimed Asphalt Pavement”, will address advances in materials design, processing, characterization, testing, mechanical properties, road construction, maintenance methods of asphalt mixtures and pavements, including implementable techniques that are useful to practicing engineers and others.

We are pleased to invite you to contribute to the Special Issue to gather a series of high-quality articles related to pavement materials. The topics of interest include but are not limited to:

asphalt pavement design and analysis;
pavements recycling techniques;
fatigue, aging and self-healing of asphalt materials;
the use of waste materials in asphalt mixtures;
pavement monitoring and testing;
pavements evaluation and management;
sustainability/durability assessment of asphalt pavements;
asphalt binder modification.

Dr. Hancheng Dan
Dr. Wei Cao
Dr. Yinchuan Guo
Dr. Dongya Ren
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

asphalt mixtures
pavement design
property evaluation
recycled materials and sustainability
pavement monitoring and testing
pavement maintenance and management

Published Papers (10 papers)

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Research

Open AccessArticle

A Study of Molecular Dynamic Simulation and Experimental Performance of the Eucommia Ulmoides Gum-Modified Asphalt

and

Materials 2023, 16(16), 5700; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma16165700 - 19 Aug 2023

Viewed by 308

Abstract

In recent years, eucommia ulmoides gum (EUG), also known as gutta-percha, has been extensively researched. Molecular dynamic simulations and experiments were used together to look at how well gutta-percha and asphalt work together and how gutta-percha-modified asphalt works. To investigate the gutta-percha and asphalt blending systems, the molecular models of asphalt and various dosages of gutta-percha-modified asphalt were set up using Materials Studio (MS), and the solubility parameters, intermolecular interaction energy, diffusion coefficient, and mechanical properties (including elastic modulus, bulk modulus, and shear modulus) of each system were calculated using molecular dynamic simulations at various temperatures. The findings indicate that EUG and asphalt are compatible, and sulfurized eucommia ulmoides gum (SEUG) and asphalt are more compatible than EUG. However, SEUG-modified asphalt has better mechanical properties than EUG, and the best preparation conditions are 10 wt% doping and 1 h of 180 °C shearing. Primarily, physical modifications are required for gutta-percha-modified asphalt. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Asphalt Mixtures and Pavements Design)

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Open AccessArticle

Study on Aging Mechanism and High-Temperature Rheological Properties of Low-Grade Hard Asphalt

and

Materials 2023, 16(16), 5641; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma16165641 - 16 Aug 2023

Viewed by 491

Abstract

In order to investigate the potential application of low-grade hard asphalt in high-temperature and high-altitude areas, various tests were conducted to analyze the performance and high-temperature rheological properties of 30#, 50#, and 70# matrix asphalt under thermo-oxidative aging and ultraviolet aging. The tests utilized for analysis included the examination of basic asphalt properties, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), atomic force microscopy (AFM), gel permeation chromatography (GPC), dynamic shear rheology (DSR), and multi-stress creep recovery (MSCR). The results indicate a progressive decrease in asphalt performance with increasing aging time. Prolonged exposure to thermal oxygen aging and ultraviolet irradiation significantly diminishes the plasticity of asphalt. The carbonyl index and sulfoxide index of asphalt increase after thermal oxygen aging and ultraviolet aging. Notably, 30# asphalt demonstrates greater resistance to aging compared to 50# and 70# asphalt under long-term high ultraviolet radiation. The LMS% of 30#, 50#, and 70# asphalt increases by 14%, 15%, and 16%, respectively. Following photothermal oxidative aging, a larger proportion of lighter components in the asphalt transforms into resins and asphaltenes. The high-temperature rheological properties of the three types of asphalt rank as 30# > 50# > 70#, while within the same type of asphalt, the high-temperature rheological properties rank as PAV > UV3 > UV2 > UV1 > RTFOT > virgin. Elevating temperature, stress level, and stress duration negatively impact the high-temperature stability of asphalt. In general, low-grade asphalt demonstrates superior anti-aging ability and high-temperature rheological properties during the aging process. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Asphalt Mixtures and Pavements Design)

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Open AccessArticle

Assessment of Waste Glass Incorporation in Asphalt Concrete for Surface Layer Construction

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Materials 2023, 16(14), 4938; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma16144938 - 11 Jul 2023

Viewed by 397

Abstract

The growing need to preserve natural resources and minimize landfill waste has led to an increased consideration of incorporating waste materials in road construction and maintenance. This study focuses specifically on utilizing waste glass as part of the aggregates in hot asphalt, particularly in Asphalt Concrete (AC) for surface layers, known as “Glassphalt”. Glass, due to its poor adhesion to bitumen, presents challenges when used in asphalt mixtures. Two types of waste glass, monolithic and tempered, were incorporated at two distinct contents, 10% and 15%, into the AC. Several properties such as stiffness, resistance to permanent deformation (evaluated through cyclic compression tests), indirect tensile strength, and the indirect tensile strength ratio (ITSR) were assessed for all Glassphalt mixtures, as well as the conventional mixture. Additionally, the Solar Reflectance Index (SRI) was measured to evaluate the reflectivity of the resulting Glassphalts. The findings indicate that the incorporation of both types of waste glass resulted in reduced stiffness and resistance to permanent deformation. Regarding water sensitivity (ITSR), the Glassphalts containing 15% waste glass, regardless of the glass type, exhibited ITSR values below the accepted threshold of 80%. The addition of waste glass did not yield significant changes in SRI measurements. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Asphalt Mixtures and Pavements Design)

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Open AccessArticle

Effect of Interlayer Bonding Temperature on the Bending Properties of Asphalt Concrete Core Wall

and

Materials 2023, 16(11), 4133; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma16114133 - 01 Jun 2023

Viewed by 426

Abstract

In the construction process of an asphalt concrete impermeable core wall, the interlayer bonding of the core wall is the weak link of the core wall structure and also the focus of construction, so it is important to carry out research on the influence of interlayer bonding temperature on the bending performance of an asphalt concrete core wall. In this paper, we study whether asphalt concrete core walls could be treated with cold-bonding by fabricating small beam bending specimens with different interlayer bond temperatures and conducting bending tests on them at 2 °C. The effect of temperature variation on the bending performance of the bond surface under the asphalt concrete core wall is studied through experimental data analysis. The test results show that the maximum value of porosity of bituminous concrete specimens is 2.10% at lower bond surface temperature of −25 °C, which does not meet the specification requirement of less than 2%. The bending stress, strain, and deflection of bituminous concrete core wall increase with the increase of bond surface temperature, especially when the bond surface temperature is less than −10 °C. If the lower bonding surface temperature is less than 10 °C, the upper layer of asphalt mixture with large grain size aggregate cannot be effectively buried in the low bond surface, resulting in flat fracture and brittle damage to the specimen, which is detrimental to construction quality; therefore, the bonding surface should be heated so that the temperature of the bottom bonding surface is 30 °C. If the lower bonding surface temperature is 10 °C or above, no heating is required. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Asphalt Mixtures and Pavements Design)

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Open AccessArticle

Neural Network Aided Homogenization Approach for Predicting Effective Thermal Conductivity of Composite Construction Materials

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Materials 2023, 16(9), 3322; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma16093322 - 23 Apr 2023

Viewed by 718

Abstract

Thermal conductivity is a fundamental material parameter involved in various infrastructure design guides around the world. This paper developed an innovative neural network (NN) aided homogenization approach for predicting the effective thermal conductivity of various composite construction materials. The 2-D meso-structures of dense graded asphalt mixture, porous asphalt mixture, and cement concrete were generated and divided into 2ⁿ × 2ⁿ square elements with specific thermal conductivity values. A two-layer feed-forward neural network with sigmoid hidden neurons and linear output neurons was built to predict the effective thermal conductivity of the 2 × 2 block. The Levenberg-Marquardt backpropagation algorithm was used to train the network. By repeatedly using the neural network, the effective thermal conductivities of 2-D meso-structures were calculated. The accuracy of the above NN aided homogenization approach was validated with experiment, and various factors affecting the effective thermal conductivity were analyzed. The analysis results show that the accuracy of the NN aided approach is acceptable with relative errors of 1.92~4.34% for the dense graded asphalt mixture, 1.10~6.85% for the porous asphalt mixture, and 1.13~3.14% for the cement concrete. The relative errors for all the materials are lower than 5% when the heterogeneous structures are divided into 512 × 512 elements. Ignoring the actual material meso-structures may lead to significant errors (134.01%) in predicting the effective thermal conductivity of materials with high heterogeneity such as porous asphalt mixture. While proper simplification is acceptable for dense construction composite materials. The effective thermal conductivity of composite cement-asphalt mixtures increases with higher saturation of grouted material. However, the improvement effect of the high-conductive cement paste on the composite cement-asphalt mixtures could be significantly reduced when the cement paste concentrates at the bottom of the mixture. Cracked aggregates and segregation of material components tend to decrease the effective thermal conductivity of construction materials. The NN aided homogenization approach presented in this paper is useful for selecting the effective thermal conductivity of construction materials. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Asphalt Mixtures and Pavements Design)

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Open AccessArticle

Performance Assessment of Self-Healing Polymer-Modified Bitumens by Evaluating the Suitability of Current Failure Definition, Failure Criterion, and Fatigue-Restoration Criteria

and

Milkos Borges Cabrera

Materials 2023, 16(6), 2488; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma16062488 - 21 Mar 2023

Viewed by 724

Abstract

Fatigue cracking is a common form of flexible pavement distress, which generally starts and spreads through bitumen. To address this issue, self-healing elastomer (SHE) modified bitumens were elaborated to assess whether these novel materials can overcome the neat asphalt (NA) fatigue performance and whether the current failure definition, failure criterion, and fatigue-restoration criteria can fit their performance. All bitumens were subjected to short-term and long-term aging. Linear amplitude sweep (LAS) test, LAS with rest period (LASH), and simplified viscoelastic-continuum-damage (S-VECD) model were utilized to appraise the behavior of the mentioned bitumens. The results showed that maximum stored pseudo-strain energy (PSE) and tau (

τ

) × N (number of loading cycles) failure definitions exhibited high efficiency to accommodate the fatigue life of NA and SHE-modified bitumens. Both failure criteria identified that SHE-modified bitumen (containing 1% of SHE) showed the highest increment of fatigue performance (67.1%) concerning NA. The failure criterion based on total released PSE, in terms of the area under the released PSE curve, was the only failure concept with high efficiency (R² up to 0.999) to predict asphalt binder fatigue life. As well, the current framework to evaluate bitumen self-restoration failed to fully accommodate asphalt binder behavior, because bitumen with higher restoration could not exhibit greater fatigue performance. Consequently, a new procedure to assess this property including fatigue behavior was proposed, showing consistent results, and confirming that SHE-modified bitumen (containing 1% of SHE) exhibited the highest increment of fatigue performance (154.02%) after application of the rest period. Hence, the optimum SHE content in NA was 1%. Furthermore, it was found that a greater number of loading cycles to failure (

N_{f}

) did not ensure better fatigue performance and stored PSE influenced the bitumen fatigue behavior. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Asphalt Mixtures and Pavements Design)

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Open AccessArticle

Optimization Design of MK-GGBS Based Geopolymer Repairing Mortar Based on Response Surface Methodology

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Materials 2023, 16(5), 1889; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma16051889 - 24 Feb 2023

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 802

Abstract

There are several influencing factors in the preparation of MK (metakaolin)-GGBS (ground granulated blast furnace slag)-based geopolymer repair mortars, including the MK-GGBS ratio, the alkalinity of the alkali activator solution, the modulus of the alkali activator solution, and the water-to-solid ratio. There are interactions between these factors, such as the different alkaline and modulus requirements of MK and GGBS, the interaction between the alkaline and modulus of the alkali activator solution, and the influence of water throughout the process. The effect of these interactions on the geopolymer repair mortar is not fully understood, making optimization of the MK-GGBS repair mortar ratio difficult. Therefore, in this paper, the response surface methodology (RSM) was used to optimize the preparation of the repair mortar, with GGBS content, SiO₂/Na₂O molar ratio, Na₂O/binder ratio, and water/binder ratio as influencing factors and 1 d compressive strength, 1 d flexural strength, and 1 d bond strength as evaluation indices. Additionally, the repair mortar’s overall performance was assessed in terms of setting time, long-term compressive and bond strength, shrinkage, water absorption, and efflorescence. The results show that RSM was successful in establishing a relationship between the repair mortar’s properties and the factors. The recommended values of the GGBS content, Na₂O/binder ratio, SiO₂/Na₂O molar ratio, and water/binder ratio are 60%, 10.1%, 1.19, and 0.41, respectively. The optimized mortar meets the standard’s requirements for set time, water absorption, shrinkage values, and mechanical strength, with minimal visual efflorescence. The back-scattered electron (BSE) images and energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) analysis show that the geopolymer and cement have good interfacial adhesion, and a denser interfacial transition zone exists in the optimized proportion. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Asphalt Mixtures and Pavements Design)

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Open AccessArticle

Reconstruction of Asphalt Pavements with Crumb Rubber Modified Asphalt Mixture in Cold Region: Material Characterization, Construction, and Performance

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Materials 2023, 16(5), 1874; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma16051874 - 24 Feb 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 987

Abstract

Dry-processed rubberized asphalt mixture has recently attracted a lot of attention as an alternative to conventional asphalt mixtures. Dry-processed rubberized asphalt pavement has improved the overall performance characteristics compared to the conventional asphalt road. The objective of this research is to demonstrate the reconstruction of rubberized asphalt pavement and evaluate the pavement performance of dry-processed rubberized asphalt mixture based on laboratory and field tests. The noise mitigation effect of dry-processed rubberized asphalt pavement was evaluated at the field construction sites. A prediction of pavement distresses and long-term performance was also conducted using mechanistic-empirical pavement design. In terms of experimental evaluation, the dynamic modulus was estimated using materials test system (MTS) equipment, the low-temperature crack resistance was characterized by the fracture energy from the indirect tensile strength test (IDT), and the asphalt aging was assessed with the rolling thin-film oven (RTFO) test and the pressure aging vessel (PAV) test. The rheology properties of asphalt were estimated by a dynamic shear rheometer (DSR). Based on the test results: (1) The dry-processed rubberized asphalt mixture presented better resistance to cracking, as the fracture energy was enhanced by 29–50% compared to that of conventional hot mix asphalt (HMA); and (2) the high-temperature anti-rutting performance of the rubberized pavement increased. The dynamic modulus increased up to 19%. The findings of the noise test showed that at different vehicle speeds, the rubberized asphalt pavement greatly reduced the noise level by 2–3 dB. The pavement M-E (mechanistic-empirical) design-predicted distress illustrated that the rubberized asphalt pavement could reduce the IRI, rutting, and bottom-up fatigue-cracking distress based on a comparison of prediction results. To sum up, the dry-processed rubber-modified asphalt pavement has better pavement performance compared to the conventional asphalt pavement. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Asphalt Mixtures and Pavements Design)

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Open AccessArticle

Investigation on Performances and Functions of Asphalt Mixtures Modified with Super Absorbent Polymer (SAP)

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Materials 2023, 16(3), 1082; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma16031082 - 26 Jan 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 972

Abstract

The super absorbent polymer (SAP) has been attracting extensive concerns due to its strong capacity in water absorption and retention. The amorphous hydrogels formed by the post-absorbent SAP have the potential of clogging the micro-cracks in asphalt materials and refraining the rainwater from infiltrating. This provides the possibility of applying SAP in asphalt pavements to seal or fill the cracks and relieve the distresses caused by rainwater infiltration in the underlying layers. Before exploring the cracking sealing mechanism of SAPs in asphalt pavements, a series of experiments were performed to evaluate the feasibility and influences of SAPs in asphalt mastics and asphalt mixtures on their mechanical performances and functionalities. Firstly, the basic properties of SAPs were analyzed, and then the rheological properties of the asphalt mastics using SAP replacing mineral powder (10%, 20%, 30%, and 40% by volume) were explored. The water stability and infiltration reduction effect of the asphalt mixtures incorporated with SAP were evaluated by the Marshall stability test, immersion Marshall stability test, freeze-thaw splitting strength test, Cantabro test, and permeability test. The test results indicated that SAPs could be used in the asphalt mixtures to partially substitute mineral powder with desirable mechanical performances. When less than 10% of the mineral powder was replaced by the SAP, the high-temperature performance and fatigue life of the asphalt mastics could be improved to some extent, but both declined after the content of the SAP was larger than 10%. Due to the hydrogels formed by SAPs after water absorption, the water stability of the asphalt mixtures deteriorated with the increased content of SAPs. Moreover, the results from the permeability tests implied that the SAP hydrogels could fill the seepage channels in the material, thus improving the migration and infiltration resistances of the asphalt mixtures. With the increased contents of SAPs, the permeability coefficients of the asphalt mixtures could be reduced up to 55%. Based on the research findings in this study, when an appropriate amount of SAP was added in the asphalt materials, desirable temperature stability, water stability, and fatigue resistance could be achieved regarding actual requirements from applications. At the same time, the addition of SAPs could effectively refrain the infiltration and migration of rainwater in asphalt pavements, thus potentially mitigating the effect of water erosion on the underlying layers. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Asphalt Mixtures and Pavements Design)

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Open AccessArticle

The Stiffness Behavior of Asphalt Mixtures with Different Compactness under Variable Confinement

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Materials 2023, 16(2), 771; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma16020771 - 12 Jan 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 974

Abstract

The dynamic modulus is a key property determining the short- and long-term performance of asphalt pavement, and its strong dependence on confining pressure and material density (mixture compactness) has been clearly indicated in the literature. It is always challenging to reproduce three-dimensional in situ stress conditions in the laboratory. To alleviate this difficulty, in this study, a convenient experimental setup was developed, in which the lateral confinement was made present and variable as a concomitant reaction of the surrounding materials to the vertical loading. Three dense-graded mixtures were prepared to a set of four different densities and then subjected to the confined dynamic modulus test. The results indicated a significant dependence of the confined modulus on the three factors of temperature, frequency, and compactness and that the mixture with coarser gradation demonstrated a less sensitivity to these parameters. A mathematical model was developed for the dynamic modulus master curve unifying these factors by means of horizontal shifting due to the time–temperature superposition principle (validated against the variable confinement at different compactness) and the vertical shift factor as a function of reduced frequency and compactness. The adequacy of the model was demonstrated using the experimental data, and its potential application in field pavement compaction was discussed. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Asphalt Mixtures and Pavements Design)

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