Quantitative Characterization of Binder Blending

Abstract

The current tendency in the asphalt paving industry is to increase the use of recycled asphalt pavement (RAP) and recycled asphalt shingles (RAS). However, a major concern that limits the use of RAP or RAS is the uncertainty about how much of the aged binder in RAP or RAS can be blended into virgin binder. Studies have focused on the diffusion between old and new binders. However, little research has been conducted to determine how much recycled binder could be mobilized and made available to coat aggregates. This study developed a laboratory procedure to quantify the rate at which aged binder was mobilized for recycled mixtures containing up to 80% RAP and 10% RAS. A new term, “large molecular size percentage (LMSP),” was derived from gel permeation chromatography testing and used to characterize recycled and virgin binders as well as their blends. Blending charts were generated for virgin–aged binder blends containing 0% to 100% RAP or RAS binder in LMSP. The relationship was found to be linear between LMSP and RAP or RAS binder content. An experiment was conducted to validate the method proposed for determining the mobilization rate. The results showed that the RAP binder mobilization rate decreased with the increase in RAP percentage in the mixture, which could be close to 100% at low RAP contents (10% and 20%); the rate dropped from 73% to 24% when the RAP percentage increased from 30% to 80%. For RAS, the mobilization rate reached a peak at 5% RAS content and then started to decrease with the increase in RAS content.