The influence of the asphalt mixture components on asphalt mixture behavior

摘要

The components of an asphalt mixture plays an important role in asphalt mixture behavior during service period, so from the beginning of a design process is very important to know their influence. Nowadays we are facing of important changes in the way how bitumen and aggregates are tested and the development of new evaluation techniques for asphalt mixtures components is essential to improving our understanding of the chemical composition and behavior of different binders and aggregates in order to develop of performance based specifications. These days there are two important problems which asphalt industry need to face up: the increasing of prices for bitumen and for good quality aggregates and the increasing of stresses in asphalt pavement due to changing of weight and loads type. The effect of these changes consist in fact that contractors have progressively shifted from recipe-based work to performance-based service. In this paper, study consists of experimental work performed at the Technical University of Civil Engineering in Bucharest on a Romanian asphalt mixture produced with pure and polymer modified bitumen. The behavior of the mixtures is investigated by performing tests according to European Norms, such as stiffness and permanent deformation.