Weather aging effects on modified asphalt with rubber-polyethylene composites

Yuetan Ma; Shifeng Wang; Miaomiao Zhang; Xi Jiang; Pawel Polaczyk; Baoshan Huang

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.161089

Weather aging effects on modified asphalt with rubber-polyethylene composites

Sci Total Environ. 2023 Mar 20:865:161089. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.161089. Epub 2022 Dec 29.

Authors

Yuetan Ma¹, Shifeng Wang², Miaomiao Zhang¹, Xi Jiang¹, Pawel Polaczyk¹, Baoshan Huang³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA.
² Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China.
³ Edwin G Burdette Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA. Electronic address: bhuang@utk.edu.

PMID: 36587706
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.161089

Abstract

Weather aging may cause more severe degradation on asphalt than thermal-oxidative aging due to the synergistic effect among oxygen, heat, ultraviolet (UV) radiation, and moisture. This study aimed to investigate weather aging effects and anti-aging mechanisms on asphalt modified with rubber-polyethylene (PE) composites. The modified binder blends and asphalt mixtures were subjected to outdoor weather aging. Dynamic shear rheometer (DSR), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Gel permeation chromatography (GPC), and optical microscopy tests were adopted to characterize the rheological properties, aging resistance, polymer degradation, and anti-aging mechanisms of modified binder blends, respectively. Mixture performance tests including Asphalt Pavement Analyzer (APA) and Ideal-CT tests were used to evaluate rutting and cracking resistance of asphalt mixtures. Results showed that weather aging can cause more severe aging to asphalt binders than pressure aging vessel (PAV) due to the severe degradation of PE particles. Rubber-PE composites alloyed with an extruder proved to stabilize PE particles in asphalt and significantly improve the aging resistance of modified binder blends. The enhanced aging resistance is attributed to the dispersion of PE particles and carbon black released by soluble rubbers.

Keywords: Aging resistance; Cracking resistance; Modified binder blends; Rubber-PE composites; Weather aging.