Reducing the rate of rutting

Rutting of asphalt surfaces is a major traffic safety concern and one of the main reasons for road maintenance work. Mostly caused by repetitive shear deformations due to traffic, the degree of rutting is influenced by the properties of asphalt mixtures.

“This is especially true at high temperatures and under relatively long loading duration when the properties of the mixtures are dominated by the viscous character of the material,” explains Xiaohu Lu, Senior Technical Specialist at Nynas.

Xiaohu Lu and his colleagues have studied how the use of polymer modified bitumen (PMB) can enhance the resistance to rutting in asphalt pavements.

“We have conducted laboratory investigations on different asphalt mixtures made with a reference conventional bitumen (70/100 pen) and polymer modified bitumen (Nypol 76-28) in terms of resistance to permanent deformation,” says Xiaohu Lu.

Wheel tracking tests were used to evaluate a dense Swedish asphalt concrete (ABT11) at 60 °C. The scientists were able to demonstrate that with respect to rutting resistance, the asphalt with the polymer modified binder performed almost ten times better than the one with the reference bitumen.

In order to further investigate the asphalt samples, the scientists carried out dynamic shear modulus tests using a wide range of temperatures and loading frequencies. These tests enabled them to work out the viscosities of the asphalt material at maximum phase angles.

That viscosity data is used as a material property input for a newly developed tool for predicting the rutting performance of asphalt pavements (see fact box).

“We observed that the asphalt material with the polymer modified binder displayed more than 20 % higher viscosity than the unmodified one,” says Xiaohu Lu.

The increased viscosity increases the rutting resistance of the asphalt material.

“By inputting our results in the prediction model, we could predict that a road section with PMB shows about 20 % less deformation compared with a section made with unmodified binder”.

In other words this means that if a section of road paved with asphalt made with PMB needs maintenance work to be carried out after a period of 20 years, a reference section of asphalt made with an unmodified binder would need to be maintained four years earlier, after about 16 years of use.

“This is a significant difference,” says Xiaohu Lu. “Not only is it significant in terms of the costs involved, it will also benefit the environment as it promotes a more sustainable use of materials and energy.”