Evaluation of Plus Grades of Performance Graded (PG) Asphalt Binder (Phase II)

Details

• Creators:
  Tarefder, Rafiqul A. ; Hasan, Md Amanul
• Corporate Creators:
  University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. Department of Civil Engineering
• Corporate Contributors:
  New Mexico. Department of Transportation. Research Bureau ; United States. Department of Transportation. Federal Highway Administration
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  Bituminous Binders Fatigue Cracking Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy Laboratory Tests Low Temperature Tests Multiple Stress Creep Recovery Test Polymer Asphalt Rutting Styrene Butadiene Styrene
• Publication/ Report Number:
  NM14MSC-01
• Resource Type:
  Tech Report
• Geographical Coverage:
  United States
• Edition:
  January 27, 2016 – January 26, 2019
• Corporate Publisher:
  New Mexico. Department of Transportation
• Abstract:
  The current Performance Grade (PG) system utilizes Dynamic Shear Rheometer (DSR), Bending Beam Rheometer (BBR), and Direct Tension (DT) tests to specify the grades of a binder. Some past studies reported that these tests apply very small amount of loadings those are within the Linear Viscoelastic (LVE) limits of the binder, where polymer network may be inactive. Therefore, researchers recommend different performance-based tests for the Polymer Modified Binders (PMBs) along with the existing PG tests. This study explored the effectiveness of different binder tests for better characterization of PMBs. In the beginning, a neat binder was blended with Styrene-Butadiene- Styrene (SBS) polymer at three different percentages: 1%, 3%, and 5%. The blended binders were used to develop a calibration curve using Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy for detecting SBS content in an unknown PMB. The laboratory produced binders were also used to prepare the mixture samples for performance tests. Next, Hamburg Wheel Track Device, Beam Fatigue, and Thermal Stress Restrained Specimen Test tests were performed on mixture samples made with different PMB binders to investigate the rutting, fatigue cracking and low-temperature performance respectively. Binder performance was evaluated through current PG tests. In addition to the PG tests, other binder tests such as Elastic Recovery, Forced Ductility, Multiple Stress Creep Recovery (MSCR), Time Sweep (TS), and Linear Amplitude Sweep (LAS) tests were conducted to evaluate which binder tests were more appropriate for PMBs. Results show that the traditional existing PG tests failed to characterize the PMBs properly. It is found that the MSCR test is most suitable for representing rutting performance. Both TS and LAS tests can successfully evaluate the fatigue cracking performance of a PMB. For thermal cracking, the critical cracking temperature calculated from BBR and DT tests’ data can be a good option for characterizing the low-temperature cracking performance of a PMB.
• Format:
  PDF
• Funding:
  456-482
• Collection(s):
  US Transportation Collection
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:216f7c55b406eb6c998993084d0985e689c28ec0411c49231834fb7cbed9410393a784dd7203203624f20563f9ce5f8dd69e8384360f4474629d9b0ab18792b5
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/87094/dot_87094_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 2.78 MB ]