Application of asphalt rubber technology to recreational trails.

摘要

Crumb rubber aggregate was employed instead of stone/sand aggregate in asphalt pavement that was modified by fine rubber particles. Crumb rubber aggregate forms an elastic network in the asphalt, which improves the pavement's susceptibility to low-temperature cracking, and absorb more stress at the crack tips than the conventional asphalt pavement. Laboratory tests were conducted to evaluate the tension/compression performance of a blend of asphalt rubber with rubber aggregate (ARRA). An optimum design methodology was introduced by examining the effect of asphalt source, curing temperature, curing time, rubber content, aggregate size, compaction pressure, and the effect of certain additives. At ambient temperature, the ARRA with equal amount of binder and aggregate exhibits good mechanical properties. Vestenamer helps improve the pavement's strength, stiffness, and fracture resistance to low temperature cracking. It was demonstrated that such pavement meets the mechanical requirements for recreational trails, such as bicycle, or pedestrian trails.; ARRA is a viscoelastic material which exhibits time-dependent and loading rate-dependent behavior. Temperature is a key issue to its response to an external load. Both temperature and rate dependences were investigated. A series of uniaxial compression relaxation tests on ARRA or Vestenamer modified ARRA were conducted at room temperature to study the time-dependent performance of ARRA. Schapery's theory was applied to characterize the nonlinear viscoelastic behavior of ARRA.