Impact of Crumb Rubber Concentration and Plastic Coated Aggregates on the Rheological Performance of Modified Bitumen Asphalt

Abstract

The diminution of natural resource exploration, the retrieval of waste, and the structural modification of polymers by additives are the main contributions to sustainable development. The properties of bitumen are enhanced by the crumb rubber through effective bitumen modification techniques, which have environmental and economic advantages. In this study, plastic waste, plastic-coated aggregate (PCA), and bitumen were blended in order to enhance the engineering properties of the flexible pavement. In order to compute the composition of crumb rubber modified bitumen (CRMB), the adopted materials were subjected to the relevant experiments. PCA was a very effective material when compared to the standard bitumen road pavement. The recycling of waste crumb rubber and plastic was tested by adding them into the hot mix asphalt. The Marshall properties of standard (virgin) bituminous mix, CRMB grade 55, and plastic mix asphalt were studied in detail to explore the solutions for a sustainable environment. The comparison was performed between these two materials with the standard bitumen, which resulted in the CRMB and plastics being found as the most effective additions with robust properties such as low-cost material, high strength, long life usage, and un-harmful to nature. The optimal bitumen content was found to be 6.166%, 6.1%, and 5.833% for standard bitumen, crumb rubber modified bitumen, and plastic-coated aggregate, respectively.