Micromechanical Modeling of Polymer Modified Asphalt at Low Temperatures

Abstract

Polymer modified asphalt (PMA) is treated as a two-phase composite material with polymer particles dispersed in an asphalt matrix. Christensen and Lo's three-phase sphere model is thus extended to a two-layer built-in model to evaluate parameters affecting the low temperature cracking resistance of a PMA mixture. A distinctive characteristic of the proposed model is that it can consider the effect of the PMA layer thickness on the mechanical properties when a PMA is used in an asphalt pavement. In addition, it can consider the effect of the polymer particle size distributions on the mechanical properties of the PMA. Approaches which are beneficial to enhance the low temperature cracking resistance of a PMA mixture are suggested based on the calculated results.

Keywords

polymer asphalt composite micromechanics modeling phase pavement

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