Evaluation of Effect of Heat-Adhesive Emulsions for Tack Coats with Shear Test

Abstract

The use of conventional emulsions for tack coats can cause problems since they frequently stick to the tires of construction vehicles. Consequently the bond between the asphalt layers is inadequate. The importance of tack coats in pavement performance means that bituminous emulsions are constantly being improved. Recently new types of emulsions have been developed from low penetration bitumen that contains no flux. These emulsions are known as heat-adhesive emulsions, and they are resistant to construction vehicles. The purpose of this study is to analyze the effect of different heat-adhesive emulsions and to verify their performance in service in comparison with the response of a conventional emulsion. For this reason a new shear test was developed in the Road Research Laboratory [Laboratorio de Caminos de Barcelona (LCB)] of the Technical University of Catalonia, in Barcelona, Spain. The LCB test is carried out at different temperatures, both on laboratory specimens and on cores extracted from recently constructed pavements, in which the same emulsions and dosages have been used. The application of the LCB test shows that the performance of the different heat-adhesive emulsions mainly depends on the characteristics of the base bitumen and the kind of modifier used. At low temperatures, heat-adhesive emulsions reach, in general terms, lower shear resistances than those of conventional emulsions; however, at intermediate temperatures there are heat-adhesive emulsions with both higher and lower strengths than those of the conventional emulsions.

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