Evaluating the rutting resistance for half warm bituminous emulsion mixtures comprising ordinary portland cement and polymer

Abstract

Comparison of Cold Mix Asphalt (CMA) technology to traditional Hot Mix Asphalt (HMA) technology, reveals that the first has several advantages in terms of economic, eco-friendly, safety and sustainability. A promising development of CMA technology is Cold Bituminous Emulsion Mixtures (CBEMs). Unfortunately, some characteristics of this technology are still in development need; namely high porosity, long curing time and low early strength. Half Warm Bitumen Emulsion Mixture (HWBEM) was introduced in previous attempt, as a treated CBEMs with optimum heating temperature being less than 100 °C. This work focuses on treating the CBEMs with low heat energy technique (i.e., microwave heating), plus two types of admixtures; Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) and acrylic (AR) polymer. The effect of low energy heating (i.e., microwave heating) on developed CBEMs characteristics is tested. Acrylic (AR) polymer was utilized in percentages of 1.25, 2.5, 3.75 and 5% of the residual bitumen. The developed mixtures of HWBEM is tested statically by Marshall and dynamically by Wheel track parameters. The results reveal that the HWBEM with OPC and 1.25% AR, showed better deformation resistance roundly 81 times with vital development in its mechanical and volumetric properties comparable to traditional HMA. Therefore, low energy heating and polymer treatment sustain the new promising paving technology called HWBEM.