Chemically modified bitumens with enhanced rheology and adhesion properties to siliceous aggregates

Cuadri, A.A.; Partal, P.; Ahmad, N.; Grenfell, J.; Airey, G.

Abstract

Moisture damage is one of the major premature failures that worsens the performance and shortens service life of pavements. This research assesses the effect that two chemical modifiers (thiourea and an isocyanate-functionalized castor oil prepolymer) exerts on the bitumen rheology and on the resistance to potential moisture damage of asphalt mixtures based on siliceous aggregates. Both thiourea and the isocyanate-based prepolymer improve the viscous and viscoelastic behaviours of bitumen at high in-service temperatures, particularly the isocyanate-based reactive modifier. Likewise, the visual inspection of the degree of bitumen coating on loose mixtures exposed to water in a “rolling bottle” test, and further surface free energy measurements, showed that the bitumen modification by the isocyanate-based prepolymer seems to reduce moisture-induced damage on siliceous aggregates. Conversely, thiourea-based modification increases sensitivity of the bitumen–aggregate mixture to water. Different adhesion mechanisms, based on chemical or physical bonds with the aggregate surface, have been proposed for each modifier.

Citation

Cuadri, A., Partal, P., Ahmad, N., Grenfell, J., & Airey, G. (2015). Chemically modified bitumens with enhanced rheology and adhesion properties to siliceous aggregates. Construction and Building Materials, 93, doi:10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2015.05.098

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: May 1, 2015
• Online Publication Date: May 23, 2015
• Publication Date: Sep 15, 2015
• Deposit Date: May 11, 2017
• Journal: Construction and Building Materials
• Print ISSN: 0950-0618
• Electronic ISSN: 0950-0618
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 93
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2015.05.098
• Keywords: Asphalt mixtures; Moisture damage; Surface free energy; Bitumen chemical modification; Product design
• Public URL: http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/id/eprint/42779
• Publisher URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095006181500611X
• Copyright Statement: Copyright information regarding this work can be found at the following address: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0