Performance Evaluation of Plant Produced Warm Mix Asphalt

Abstract

Warm mix asphalt (WMA) is relatively a new technology which enables the production and compaction of asphalt concrete mixtures at temperatures 15-40 °C lower than that of traditional hot mix asphalt HMA. In the present work, six asphalt concrete mixtures were produced in the mix plant (1 ton each) in six different batches. Half of these mixes were WMA and the other half were HMA.  Three types of fillers (limestone dust, Portland cement and hydrated lime) were used for each type of mix. Samples were then taken from these patches and transferred to lab for performance testing which includes: Marshall characteristics, moisture susceptibility (indirect tension test), resilient modulus, permanent deformation (axial repeated load test) and fatigue characteristics (third point flexural beam test). The obtained results indicated that the performance of WMA is enhanced when using the hydrated lime as filler in comparison with the limestone dust and Portland cement fillers. Better fatigue life was obtained for WMA using hydrated lime filler in comparison with HMA. Regardless the filler type, the Marshall properties of WMA satisfy the requirement of local specification, other properties of WMA were relatively lower than the HMA.