DEVELOPMENT OF ASPHALT OVERLAY FABRIC FROM JUTE AND ITS PERFORMANCE EVALUATION

摘要

A design concept of developing asphalt overlay (A/O) fabric made purely from jute and suitable for reinforcement and moisture barrier functions for low traffic road is described in this paper. A leno based woven construction was selected for the purpose. In-situ performance of the newly developed jute asphalt overlay (JAO) fabric within pavement and other two commercial A/O fabrics with different constructions was investigated. To this end, both the dry and hygrally treated samples of asphalt concrete beams (ACBs) with and without A/O fabrics were subjected to accelerated cyclic mechanical loading simulating the vehicular traffic. A comparison of crack propagation established the efficacy of JAO though it is weaker in respect of strength and modulus than one of the commercial A/O fabric used.An analysis of the fabrics exhumed from the tested ACBs revealed that JAO having grid like structure with suitable opening size help in creating proper interlocking among aggregates of the overlay and voids of the old pavement surface across the fabric within pavement and thereby the two layers of the pavement acts as a single body which resists crack growth much better beyond its level than sheet like A/O fabrics.