Ageing of bituminous materials: Experimental and numerical characterization

Abstract

Research of the ageing mechanisms in the Netherlands is crucial to deal with ageing infrastructure and the growing pressure on and lack of natural resources. The use of porous asphalt incurs the additional costs because of the shorter service life and the more expensive maintenance required. On the other hand, the Dutch road engineering community has made significant efforts in recycling of pavements after the end of their service life. Currently, 90% of the asphalt is demolished and used in new asphalt pavement. Ideally, it would be nice to keep recycling asphalt concrete indefinitely, but this should be done without loss of functionality or environmental risks.This thesis aims to acquire an advanced understanding of the fundamental thermal ageing processes of bituminous materials, by conducting a series of experiments and developing a set of computational models. A greater understanding of the bitumen ageing mechanisms and how they change physico-chemical properties of bitumen can help to accurately predict the service life of an asphalt pavement and develop high performance bituminous products that are less sensitive to ageing...Pavement Engineerin