Phase-Separation Characteristics of Bitumen and their Relation to Damage-Healing

During the service life of flexible asphalt pavements, asphalt concrete degrades due to traffic loading and environmental conditions like temperature, rain, oxidation, ultraviolet-radiation from the sun. All these environmental factors have adverse effects on the performance of bitumen, which is the binder of asphalt concrete. They are known to...

Chemomechanics of Damage Accumulation and Damage-Recovery Healing in Bituminous Asphalt Binders

As a contribution to the development of mutli-scale multi-physics approaches to modelling pavement performance, the present thesis considers the topic of damage accumulation accompanied by damage recover self-healing of the bituminous asphalt phase of pavement systems. It is found insightful that by adopting Hveem’s [1943] concept of attributing...

The Influence of Ageing on the Fatigue and Healing Properties of Bituminous Mortars

For asphalt pavement design in Belgium, healing is taken into account as a standard shift factor, representing the effect of rest periods between loadings of traffic. Because nowadays Reclaimed Asphalt Aggregate (RA) is widely used in hot mixtures, a new validation of the healing factor is needed. Given the lack of test results and a standard...