The Effects of Freeze-thaw Cycles and Deicer Salt on the Durability of Recycled Asphalt Mixtures

The Effects of Freeze-thaw Cycles and Deicer Salt on the Durability of Recycled Asphalt Mixtures
Author: Shahab Moeini Feizabadi
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2019
Genre:
ISBN:

In places with severe seasonal variations, such as the province of New Brunswick, asphalt mixtures are subjected to cyclic freezing and thawing during the cold months. Moreover, different types of deicers are frequently used to mitigate the effects of snow, ice, and freezing rain on the pavements to increase the safety of roadways. In partnership with New Brunswick Department of Transportation and Infrastructure (NBDTI), seven different mix designs of plant-produced asphalt mixtures, including recycled and conventional hot mix asphalt, were collected from different projects across the province. These samples were subjected to different conditions simulating extreme weather in New Brunswick before conducting multiple tests including indirect tensile strength, semi- circular bending, and abrasion resistance. It was found that freeze-thaw cycles (FTCs) resulted in a high reduction in the tensile strength of the asphalt mixtures; however, there was not any significant difference between tensile strength of conventional and recycled mixtures. Saturation of the samples in deicer salt brine prior to testing did not result in a significant effect on the tensile strength. Semicircular bending (SCB) tests found that the cracking potential of the samples almost doubled after exposing them to a single freeze- thaw cycle. Finally, abrasion resistance tests showed that conventional asphalt mixtures were more susceptible to abrasion compared to the recycled mixtures.

The Effect of Deicing Salt on Aggregate Durability

The Effect of Deicing Salt on Aggregate Durability
Author: Wendell G. Dubberke
Publisher:
Total Pages: 32
Release: 1985
Genre: Aggregates (Building materials)
ISBN:

Since 1962, the Iowa DOT has been using the methods of rapid freezing in air and thawing in water to evaluate coarse aggregate durability in concrete. Earlier research had shown that the aggregate pore system was a major factor in susceptibility to D-cracking rapid deterioration. There are cases in which service records indicate that on heavily salted primary roads, concrete containing certain aggregates show rapid deterioration while the same aggregates show relatively good performance on secondary roads with limited use of deicing salt. A fivecycle salt treatment of the coarse aggregate before durability testing has yielded durability factors that correlate with aggregate service records on heavily salted primary pavements. X-ray fluorescence analyses have shown that sulfur contents correlate well with aggregate durabilities with higher sulfur contents that produce poor durability. Trial additives affecting the salt treatment durabilities would indicate that one factor in the rapid deterioration mechanism is an adverse chemical reaction. The objective of the current research is to develop a simple method of determining aggregate susceptibility to salt-related deterioration. This method of evaluation includes analyses of both the pore system and chemical composition.

Capturing Individual Or Combined Environmental Effects from Longer Term Field Aging of Asphalt Mixtures

Capturing Individual Or Combined Environmental Effects from Longer Term Field Aging of Asphalt Mixtures
Author: Rabeea Waheed Bazuhair
Publisher:
Total Pages: 206
Release: 2019
Genre:
ISBN:

Nowadays, asphalt mixtures can be complex and have many ingredients to meet economic, performance, and/or environmental requirements. Economic and environmental factors have been driving performance in the positive direction for rutting, but the negative direction for brittleness, cracking, and overall durability. Recent research has also shown that two of the national standards to assess aging or effects of environmental factors (AASHTO T283 and R30) do not always simulate the amount of aging or behaviors mentioned in the documents. Also, these methods generally view one environmental effect at a time, and do not consider simultaneous environmental effects on aging (e.g. oxidation, moisture, freeze-thaw effects). However, pavements are exposed to combined environmental effects. As such, there is a lack of understanding of the combined environmental effects on asphalt pavement, and improve methods are needed for laboratory settings, resulting in less than optimal design and materials selection protocols. This dissertation focuses on investigating combined environmental effects of oxidation, moisture, and freeze-thaw. The dissertation includes four years of field aging of plant mixed asphalt mixtures containing no recycled materials and three different warm mix technologies that were also exposed to eight laboratory conditioning protocols including individual and combined environmental effects of oxidation, moisture and freeze-thaw to investigate mixture properties measured at high, intermediate, and low temperatures with several mixture tests that were complimented with tests on recovered binder. Major findings are summarized below: • Cantabro mass loss captured individual and combined effects damage in laboratory and field conditions better than other mixture testing utilized herein and was recommended for mixture assessment. • Laboratory conditioning protocols with combined effects were the only ones able to consistently represent four or more years of field aging in the Mississippi climate. • Field aging of laboratory compacted specimens in PVC sleeves did not fully represent field aging of field placed pavement. Temperature and moisture conditions varied between the two cases. • Use of Cantabro mass loss and laboratory conditioning consisting of hot air, hot water, and freeze-thaw conditions was shown to provide combined effects improvements relative to at least some typical practices. Guidance was provided on how to use these tools to assess combined effects.

Freeze-Thaw Effects on Stiffness of Unbound Recycled Road Base

Freeze-Thaw Effects on Stiffness of Unbound Recycled Road Base
Author: James M. Tinjum
Publisher:
Total Pages: 19
Release: 2013
Genre: Crushed rock aggregate
ISBN:

A major concern for using recycled pavement material as an unbound base or subbase layer is the effect of changing seasons on the properties of the recycled material. Three sources of recycled concrete aggregate (RCA) and recycled asphalt pavement (RAP), and one conventional base aggregate, were used to investigate the effect of freeze-thaw cycles on the stiffness of unbound road base/subbase layers. Effects of freeze-thaw cycling on the mechanical behavior of three gradations (coarse, medium, fine) of recycled materials were systematically evaluated to determine how climatic factors and aging affect the resilient modulus. Sealed specimens were exposed to 5, 10, and 20 sets of freeze-thaw cycles. Resilient modulus tests were conducted according to NCHRP 1-28A after the final freeze-thaw cycle. Freeze-thaw cycling caused a decrease in the stiffness (i.e., the summary resilient modulus) of RAP samples and class 5 aggregate because of the effect of the water retained in the pores. An increase in the stiffness of RCA was observed over 20 freeze-thaw cycles and is attributed to self-cementitious behavior of crushed concrete. Seismic modulus testing was used to investigate the continuous rate of change (daily) of the stiffness for RCA and class 5 aggregate. The seismic modulus test confirmed the trends observed in resilient modulus testing and served as a non-destructive method for tracking changes in stiffness over time and freeze-thaw cycling.