EFFECT OF AGEING OF BITUMEN ON PERFORMANCE OF ASPHALT PAVEMENTS IN TROPICAL ENVIRONMENTS
Experience with bituminous surfaced roads in Kenya indicates a deterioration of asphaltic surfacings is manifested mainly by cracking early at their service-life. This paper reviews some previous works and describes the investigations made into the effect of hardening of bitumen on performance of both light bituminous surfacings and asphaltic concrete pavements. The typical failure pattern is that environmentally induced hardening of binder in the surfacings results in a brittle skin which is prone to cracking under stresses of traffic and temperature. Water finds its way through such cracks into the road pavement structure and weakens it. It was found that the effect of binder hardening on performance of the thin surface dressings is dependent on the volume of traffic and the quality of surfacing aggregates. Light surfacings typically deteriorate by abrasion and peel-off due to stripping. On the other hand, potholes appear after deep and intensive cracking on asphaltic concrete surfacings. (A) For the covering abstract of the conference see IRRD 873950.
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Corporate Authors:
STEERING COMMITTEE CAPSA '94
PO BOX 6946
ROGGEBAAI, South Africa 8012 -
Authors:
- MWEA, S K
- BEZABEH, G B
- Conference:
- Publication Date: 1994
Language
- English
Media Info
- Features: References;
- Pagination: I77-I95
Subject/Index Terms
- TRT Terms: Aging (Materials); Binders; Bitumen; Conferences; Deterioration; Durability; Pavements; Standards; Test procedures
- Geographic Terms: Kenya
- ITRD Terms: 5292: Ageing; 4948: Binder; 4963: Bitumen; 8525: Conference; 5255: Deterioration; 5910: Durability; 8055: Kenya; 2955: Pavement; 187: Specification (standard); 6288: Test method
- Subject Areas: Highways; Pavements;
Filing Info
- Accession Number: 00714387
- Record Type: Publication
- Source Agency: Transport Research Laboratory
- Files: ITRD
- Created Date: Dec 27 1995 12:00AM