Characterization of Asphalt Mixtures and Rap Binder Properties Through Impact Resonance Test

Download or read book Characterization of Asphalt Mixtures and Rap Binder Properties Through Impact Resonance Test written by Ilker Boz and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Characterization of asphalt concrete is of paramount importance for the sound structural design and analysis of flexible pavements. Of equal importance is the availability of test methods that can provide an accurate and reliable measure of the required engineering properties of the material. For routine applications in material characterization, selected test methods should be reliable, simple, quick, repeatable, and cost eective. The use of nondestructive test (NDT) methods has proven to provide such characterization capabilities. Among those methods, the impact resonance (IR) test is a vibration based NDT method, and has been increasingly used for asphalt concrete evaluation and characterization in the past two decades. The majority of studies regarding the IR test in asphalt concrete applications have been focused on comparison of the IR test moduli with the moduli obtained from conventional asphalt concrete dynamic modulus tests and the predictive equations. In this dissertation, the IR test was utilized to characterize the properties of asphalt concrete mixtures and recycled asphalt pavement (RAP) binder through mixture testing at a range of temperatures. To this eect, several independent studies were conducted.The second order equation of motion assumption in rheological modeling of the IR test response was evaluated for asphalt concrete testing. A set of asphalt concrete specimens was tested with the IR test, and the obtained signals at a range of temperatures were evaluated by means of the Hankel matrix method. The results showed that the assumption is violated for asphalt concrete testing, especially at high temperatures, mainly due to the presence of noise in the obtained response. However, the Hankel method was employed to filter out the noise. It was seen that the assumption could be employed for asphalt concrete at a range of temperatures including high temperatures, provided that the filtering is performed on the obtained signal. The results also showed that the employed filtering procedure produced improvements for the IR test material dependent responses, resonant frequency and especially damping ratio calculations.The IR test results are influenced by specimen size and testing configurations. A study was conducted to investigate the influence of aspect ratio (length/diameter) of laboratory specimens on the frequency response of asphalt concrete when tested with the IR. The IR test, performed in a longitudinal mode, demonstrated that the test is repeatable and reproducible. The test results indicated that the frequency response increased as the aspect ratio increased approximately up to 0.7, and then it decreased with a nonlinear trend as the aspect ratio increased beyond 0.7, indicating that the tendency of the frequency response reached a plateau as the aspect ratio increased. It was inferred from the test results that there was a threshold aspect ratio at which the fundamental longitudinal frequency mode was not the dominant frequency mode. Velocity calculations from measured resonant frequencies indicated that the true material properties for the longitudinal mode could be attained at an aspect ratio of as low as 1.In another study, the sensitivity of the resonant frequency response of the IR testing of asphalt concrete to asphalt concrete mixture parameters was investigated. The IR tests were performed on disk-shaped asphalt concrete specimens at the transverse (flexural) mode of vibration at a temperature range of approximately -10 to 50oC. Test results revealed that the relationship between the resonant frequency and temperature was described by a polynomial fit, and it was shown through statistical analysis that the slopes of the fit were significantly aected by mixture parameters such as air void content and binder content. Also, the statistical formulation (predictive model) between the resonant frequency and the asphalt concrete mixture parameters were established for a given aggregate gradation of nominal maximum size and an aggregate specific gravity. The prediction accuracy of the model was evaluated by independent data sets, and the test results indicated that the maximum error between the measured and predicted resonant frequencies was not more than 9 percent.In an eort to characterize the properties of recycled asphalt pavement (RAP) binder with the IR test through asphalt concrete mixture testing, two approaches were utilized. An approach is proposed for determination of binder properties through the IR testing of mixtures with RAP and binders with known engineering properties. The IR tests were performed in the longitudinal mode at a range of temperatures between 3 and 35oC. Also, RAP binder and virgin binders were tested using dynamic shear rheometer (DSR) at the same temperature range as the IR testing. It was seen that the IR test ranked the expected trend of binder stiness with respect to the resonant frequency of mixtures. The results indicate the potential of the proposed concept and feasibility of the approach in determining binder properties, including properties of the RAP binder. A practical method is proposed for determination of binder properties based on mixture testing.In the second approach, the IR test potential to characterize the low-temperature properties of an RAP binder that incorporated a rejuvenating agent was investigated. This approach included testing of mixes with virgin binders and pure RAP mixes treated with a rejuvenating agent at dierent levels using the IR, as well as testing of blends of recovered RAP binder, rejuvenator, and virgin binder using bending beam rheometer (BBR). The results showed that the IR test can properly rank the expected stiness of binders through mixture testing. The results also indicated high linear correlations between mixture properties obtained from the IR test (modulus and phase angle) and binder properties obtained from the BBR test (stiness and m-value, a relaxation index). The results clearly demonstrate the potential of IR to be used for grading and optimization for the asphalt binder of RAP and rejuvenator content in lieu of the binder recovery method.