Introduction

S.-C. Huang1, H. Di Benedetto2

1
Western Research Institute, Laramie, WY, USA; 2University of Lyon, Lyon, France

Asphalt materials (or bituminous materials) have been used for road construction and
maintenance since the end of the nineteenth century. They are the most common materials for quality road surfaces and structures. The importance of these materials in road
construction can be demonstrated by their extraordinary physical and chemical properties. However, their complex thermoviscoelastoplastic and chemical behavior are
still not well understood, even after several decades of application, and are in need
of new investigations, from nanoscale up to structure levels.
In light of growing concerns about environmental and health protection, the
techniques and processes used for energy-saving and natural materials should be redesigned, and new materials should be invented. These evolutions are part of the natural
process of sustainable development and need technological breakthroughs. All of
these will be possible only if scientific locks are solved. They can be accomplished
only if better knowledge of the complex behavior of asphalt materials is developed.
This book provides updates of the most advanced developments in asphalt materials,
including asphalts, mastics, and mixes, and aims to provide information and
knowledge that help to solve the new challenges of road construction.
Asphalt, also known as bitumen, is the black glue that binds more than 90% of highway together. It is largely produced from the refining of crude oils. The chemical and
physical properties of crude oils that are obtained from different oil fields (sources) are
generally different. These differences have a significant effect on the properties of
asphalts, especially when they come into contact with aggregates in the pavement
engineering field. Asphalt binder is a mixture of a wide variety of hydrogen and carbon compounds. Some are aliphatic (waxy asphalts), some are aromatic (airblown
asphalts), and some molecules include both aliphatic and aromatic carbon. These
components appear to vary widely in molecular size, and it is the known tendency
of polar molecules to form molecular associations. Such associations are usually held
together by weak forces compared with the bonding forces that hold individual atoms
together in molecules. Polars tend to associate strongly to form organized structures
and cause stiffening, while nonpolars cause dissociation of polars and softening of the
whole asphalt.
It is known that polar associations in asphalt are of great importance in influencing
asphalt properties, and it is important to introduce a model of asphalt structure in
which molecular associations are central. This model historically has been known
as the colloidal model, and assumes that polar molecules in crude oil residua interact

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Introduction

to form molecular associations. These molecular associations are believed to be dispersed in a bulk solvent, which consists of the saturated components, the aromatic
compounds, and the less polar heteroatom-containing compounds. Unfortunately, current research does not provide sufficient information on how these microstructures
influence the rheological properties of asphalt binders, or on pavement performance.
Several distresses are observed in road structures. It appears that a good knowledge
of the composition of asphalt and asphalt aggregate interaction must be considered for
a good description of these distresses. For example, cracking is one of the serious failure modes in pavement. If the molecular network becomes too stiff (rigid), the stability of an asphalt to deform elastically will be lost. Instead, the asphalt will fracture and
likely will be separated sufficiently so that healing cannot occur.
Asphalts in pavements that exist as thin films exposed to aggregates, fillers, water,
oxygen, and traffic are the real service conditions in which they should have predictable performance. However, the different classification systems, such as the current
performance grade (PG) system, provide no assurance to the asphalts that like grades
will have the same stiffness when water is present in pavement, nor are there any criteria to differentiate the oxidation effect. Oxidation very well may cause different
embrittlements after a few years of pavement service. Oxidation imparts permanent
hardening either in asphalt or in a mixture. When asphalt oxidizes, it stays stiffer
at any given set of conditions of storage time, temperature, and shear. Asphalt suffers
oxidative hardening continuously during its lifetime, and this type of hardening cannot
be removed by heat alone. The intent of developing a new specification was to classify
asphalts by their expected pavement performance, but the real-world environments
are largely ignored in the current design methods. Even the current global aging system does not address photooxidation, nor does the current aging model include
fundamental binder properties.
Healing is another important phenomenon in which asphalt concrete is observed to
regain strength during a rest period after loss of strength during heavy traffic use. This
phenomenon, which still needs to be defined correctly, has been studied extensively in
recent years by many researchers. They envision a process wherein microcracks
formed in asphalt concrete during heavy traffic loads fuse back together when allowed
to rest. Clearly, this would require the asphalt to flow to refill the microcracks, and
certainly would be accelerated by confining pressure. A critically important observation is that not all asphalt concretes heal at the same rate, nor to the same extent.
Variations in asphalt composition cause major differences in healing propensity.
Clearly, fast and complete healing are performance advantages, but currently there
is no binder specification for healing rate or efficiency. No advantage is made of this
knowledge that asphalts can be distinguished with respect to performance.
Moisture damage is another common problem in asphalt pavement. Moisture may
invade pavement from rain, subgrade water, drainage, humidity, and so on. Water is a
highly polar material that can be transported into the asphalt by virtue of attraction of
polar water molecules to polar asphalt components. When water penetrates the asphalt
concrete, the mechanical strength will be reduced. However, current methods, such as
the Superpave system, do not provide guidelines on how water influences the strength
of asphalt concrete.

Introduction

xxi

Permanent deformation (which induces rutting) and fatigue damage have been well
recognized as two of the most important distresses, and they have been studied extensively over the years. However, these phenomena are not always modeled correctly. In
addition, past research has always focused on these two phenomena separately. In a
real pavement situation, these two phenomena occur simultaneously.
The use of reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) has become relatively common
practice in most countries, as it is both an environmentally and economically attractive
proposition. A survey conducted by the Federal Highway Administrations RAP
expert task group shows that the average RAP content in hot mix is only 1020%
as used in the United States, even though specifications allow up to 30%. The primary
reason for this limited use is the uncertainty of the long-term performance of RAP
materials. Research is still needed for characterizing asphalt binders extracted from
RAP and recycled hot-mix asphalts. Furthermore, the interaction between new and
old asphalt binders in the mixtures containing RAP has not been studied extensively,
and the physicochemical interaction is still not well understood. It is essential to
understand the fundamental properties of recycled asphalt binder as well as the interaction between the old binder in the recycled asphalt and the fresh binder in the
new mix.
With the development of cold and warm mix techniques, new additives and new
processes appeared. The properties of these new asphaltic materials are different from
those of classical hot mixes, and therefore raise new questions. Again, research is
needed for better materials and structure design.
The strong demand for natural petroleum and the high cost of asphalt cement has
encouraged the development of alternative binders to replace asphalt binders. The
benefits of using alternative binders are that they can help save natural resources
and reduce energy consumption, all while maintaining and in some cases improving
pavement performance. Common alternative binders include fossil fuel, biobinder,
soybean oil, palm oil, vegetable oil, engine oil residue, grape residue, swine waste,
and pyrolized materials, among others. It has been observed that most, if not all, of
these alternative binders contain chemical compositions somewhat similar to those
of conventional asphalt binders (hydrocarbons, aromatics, saturates, asphaltenes,
etc.). However, research results indicate significant variability in the properties of
alternative binders. In addition, the modification mechanism (chemical) for asphalt
with alternative binders depends on the base asphalt, and is therefore not well
understood.
Achievement of consistent performance with asphalts requires accurate classification and better understanding of the causes of pavement distresses.
This introduction presented some key unsolved questions related to asphalt materials and road applications. This book presents the current advances in asphalt research
that cause different distresses, and how they influence overall pavement performance.
It is especially designed to cover everything from the microscale of fundamental
chemical properties of asphalt binder, to the macroscale of mixture properties, how
they influence each other, and pavement performance. Obviously, additional research
is needed to better understand the relationship among age hardening, binder viscosity,
healing, moisture, fatigue cracking, and so on in pavement using asphalt.

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Introduction

This book consists of a total of 15 chapters, written by authors from international

societies and separated into three parts: (1) Characterization and analysis of asphalt
materials; (2) Damage mechanisms; and (3) Alternative asphalt materials. Following
this introduction, Chapter 1, entitled A perspective of bituminous binder specifications, provides the binder specification perspective of the past, present, and future.
Chapter 2, entitled Analytical separation methods in asphalt research, introduces the
typical analytical techniques for characterizing the chemical properties of asphalt
binder. Chapter 3, entitled Tridimensional linear viscoelastic behavior of bituminous
materials, provides a new way of thinking on how rheological models, via 3D linear
viscoelastic theory, link to thermomechanical properties of asphalt mixtures, and provides a better simulation model for real pavement. Chapter 4, entitled Characterization of asphalt materials by scanning probe microscopy, introduces how current
atomic force microscopy (AFM) is used as a nanomechanical technique to measure
mechanical properties of bituminous materials at micron and submicron scale.
Chapter 5, entitled Cracking mechanisms in asphalt pavements, introduces the
cracking mechanisms in asphalt pavements and provides a top-down cracking performance prediction model to illustrate the full potential of the critical condition
approach. Chapter 6, entitled Deformation mechanisms of bituminous materials,
provides insights on how the mechanical behavior of pure bitumen contributes to
the deformation-mechanism maps. Chapter 7, entitled Damage healing in asphalt
pavements: theory, mechanisms, measurement, and modeling, treats healing phenomena and presents a methodology by which the intrinsic and the long-term healing
properties can be measured and used in fatigue damage analysis. Chapter 8, entitled
The fatigue cracking of asphalt mixtures in tension and compression, summarizes
the results of testing and analysis methods developed to provide the engineering properties of asphalt mixtures in tension and compression both in the undamaged and the
damaged states. Chapter 9, entitled Multiscale modeling approach for asphalt concrete and its implications on oxidative aging, provides a link from constituent binder
behavior (mastic) to mixture in terms of oxidative aging models. Chapter 10, entitled
Moisture damage in asphaltic mixtures, introduces the mechanism of moisture damage and how the finite element method is used to simulate water flow induced by the
moving wheel, and provides guidelines for mix design of moisture-resistant asphalt
mixtures. Chapter 11, entitled Advances in the development of alternative binders
from biomass for the production of biosourced road binders, gives information on
some new products that could replace asphalt in the future. Chapter 12, entitled
Blending of virgin bitumen and RA binder in mixtures with high amounts of
RA, discusses if full blending occurred and how the blending influences the RAP
mixture properties. Chapter 13, entitled Paving with asphalt emulsions, provides
information on emulsion production, emulsion properties, and curing mechanisms.
Chapter 14, entitled A new approach for aggregate grading optimization for mixtures, presents a new method to obtain aggregate gradation and packing, improving
mix performance.