U.S. Department of Transportation
Federal Highway Administration
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Federal Highway Administration Research and Technology
Coordinating, Developing, and Delivering Highway Transportation Innovations
| REPORT |
| This report is an archived publication and may contain dated technical, contact, and link information |
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| Publication Number: FHWA-HRT-11-045 Date: November 2012 |
Publication Number: FHWA-HRT-11-045 Date: November 2012 |
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This final report provides the comprehensive findings from two Transportation Pooled Fund (TPF) research projects, TPF-5(019): Full-Scale Accelerated Performance Testing for Superpave and Structural Validation and SPR-2(174): Accelerated Pavement Testing of Crumb Rubber Modified Asphalt Pavements. The research identified candidate purchase specification tests for asphalt binder that better discriminate expected fatigue cracking and rutting performance than current SUperior PERforming Asphalt PAVEment (Superpave®) tests. Full-scale accelerated pavement testing and laboratory characterization tests on mixtures and binders provided the basis for the recommendations.
This report documents a historical review of the development of asphalt binder performance specifications, experimental design, test pavement construction and performance, statistical methodology to rank and identify the strongest candidates, and all pertinent laboratory characterization of binders and mixtures that supplemented the recommendations. The research also provided a detailed case study of pavement evaluation using falling weight deflectometer and objective means to evaluate two emerging technologies; the asphalt mixture performance tester and the Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Design Guide.(1)
This document will be of interest to highway personnel involved with Superpave®, materials selection, performance specifications, and pavement design and evaluation.
Jorge E. Pagán-Ortiz
Director, Office of Infrastructure
Research and Development
Notice
This document is disseminated under the sponsorship of the U.S. Department of Transportation in the interest of information exchange. The U.S. Government assumes no liability for the use of the information contained in this document. This report does not constitute a standard, specification, or regulation.
The U.S. Government does not endorse products or manufacturers. Trademarks or manufacturers’ names appear in this report only because they are considered essential to the objective of the document.
Quality Assurance Statement
The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) provides high-quality information to serve Government, industry, and the public in a manner that promotes public understanding. Standards and policies are used to ensure and maximize the quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of its information. FHWA periodically reviews quality issues and adjusts its programs and processes to ensure continuous quality improvement.
Technical Report Documentation Page
| 1. Report No.
FHWA-HRT-11-045 |
2. Government Accession No. | 3 Recipient's Catalog No. | ||
| 4. Title and Subtitle
Performance Testing for Superpave and Structural Validation |
5. Report Date November 2012 |
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| 6. Performing Organization Code | ||||
| 7. Author(s)
Nelson Gibson, Xicheng Qi, Aroon Shenoy, Ghazi Al-Khateeb, |
8. Performing Organization Report No.
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9. Performing Organization Name and Address Office of Infrastructure Research and Development |
10. Work Unit No. (TRAIS) |
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| 11. Contract or Grant No. | ||||
| 12. Sponsoring Agency Name and Address
TPF-5(019): Connecticut, Florida, Kansas, Maryland, Mississippi, Montana, New Jersey, New York, Nebraska, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Texas SPR-2(174): Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, North Carolina, New York, Oregon, Texas |
13. Type of Report and Period Covered
January 2002–January 2008 |
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14. Sponsoring Agency Code
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15. Supplementary Notes A project database is available upon request from FHWA Office of Infrastructure Research & Development. The Task Manager was Nelson Gibson, HRDI-10. |
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| 16. Abstract
The primary objective of this full-scale accelerated pavement testing was to evaluate the performance of unmodified and polymer modified asphalt binders and to recommend improved specification tests over existing SUperior PERforming Asphalt PAVEment (Superpave®) binder performance grading methodologies. Candidate replacement tests were evaluated via their ability to discern fatigue cracking resistance and rutting. Two fatigue cracking specification tests were identified as more capable in capturing performance than others: binder yield energy and critical tip opening displacement. Two rutting specification tests that quantify irrecoverable deformations exhibited the best strength to capture rutting: multiple stress creep and recovery and oscillatory-based nonrecoverable stiffness. Based on the full-scale performance and laboratory tests, crumb rubber (recycled tires) modified asphalt (Arizona wet process) was shown to significantly slow or stop the growth of fatigue cracks in a composite asphalt pavement structure. A hybrid technique to modify asphalt with a combination of crumb rubber and conventional polymers (terminally blended) exhibited good fatigue cracking resistance relative to the control binder. Also, a simple
addition of polyester fibers to asphalt mix was shown to have high resistance to fatigue cracking without the use
of polymer modification. The research study also quantified the capabilities of the National Cooperative Highway Research Program’s mechanistic-empirical pavement design and analysis methodologies to predict rutting and fatigue cracking of modified asphalts that were not captured in the calibration data from the Long-Term Pavement Performance program. Falling weight deflectometer, multidepth deflectometer, and strain gauge instrumentation were used to measure pavement response. The results illustrated that the nationally calibrated mechanistic-empirical performance models could differentiate between structural asphalt thickness but had difficulty differentiating modified from unmodified asphalt binder performance. Nonetheless, the mechanistic-empirical performance ranking and predictions were enhanced and improved using mixture-specific performance tests currently being implemented using the asphalt mixture performance tester. |
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| 17. Key Words
APT, ALF, Fatigue cracking, Rutting, Superpave, Asphalt binder specification, FWD, Mechanistic-empirical pavement design, Asphalt mixture performance tests |
18. Distribution Statement
No restrictions. This document is available to the public through the National Technical Information Service, Springfield, VA 22161 |
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19. Security Classification Unclassified |
20. Security Classification Unclassified |
21. No. of Pages 271 |
22. Price | |
| Form DOT F 1700 | Reproduction of completed page authorized |
SI* (Modern Metric) Conversion Factors
