Mechanical Properties and Performance of Mixtures Containing a High Level of Recycled Materials That Are Designed Using Alternative Approaches

Abstract

Using recycled asphalt material (RAM) in asphalt mixtures is very common among transportation agencies. With the recent development of balanced mix design methods, it is becoming more important to understand how to optimize mixture performance by offsetting the adverse effects of RAM. In this paper, mixtures from three different sources were adjusted according to the availability adjusted mix design (AAMD) and corrected optimum asphalt content (COAC) methods. Three control mixtures containing RAM, three mixtures containing no RAM, five mixtures designed according to the AAMD method (two of which had 50% reclaimed asphalt pavement content), and two mixtures adjusted using the COAC-based approach were evaluated. Both asphalt mixture performance tester experiments and index tests were used in this study to evaluate material-level indicators of cracking and rutting resistance. Additionally, pavement performance simulations were carried out using AASHTOWare Pavement ME and FlexPAVE^TM to assess how the observed material-level differences led to differences in structural-level pavement performance. Both the AAMD and COAC methods improved cracking measures. However, the results suggest that the additional virgin binder added through the COAC method without any adjustments to the aggregate structure can have negative consequences for the rutting performance measures. In addition, the mixture and pavement performance results suggest that the AAMD method is a rational approach for including recycled binder availability in mix design procedures to promote improvements in the cracking performance of mixtures by controlling the volumetric properties and the aggregate structure of the mix without having a detrimental effect on rutting resistance.