A Mechanical Approach to Quantify Blending of Aged Binder from Recycled Materials in New Hot Mix Asphalt Mixtures

In the paving industry, there is increased interest in using recycled materials like recycled asphalt shingles (RAS) and reclaimed asphalt pavements (RAP) due to the valuable asphalt binder contained within them. The major concern with using these materials is that the binder they contain is highly aged, which could lead to reduced mixture durability. Therefore, a method is needed to quantify the extent to which the aged binders from these materials blend with virgin binder when producing mixtures in order to understand better their effects on mixture performance. In this study, a new approach to quantify the amount of blending that occurs between aged RAS and RAP binders and a virgin binder was developed. Asphalt binders were extracted and recovered from RAS and RAP stockpiles and blended with a PG64-28 virgin binder in varying proportions. The master curves of these mixtures were constructed at 20 degrees C. Asphalt mixtures containing different proportions of the same RAS and RAP stockpiles were then designed and the dynamic moduli of the mixtures were measured to construct mixture master curves at 20 degrees C. The binder master curves for each blending proportion were then substituted into a locally calibrated Hirsch model to predict the mixture master curves. Comparison of the measured and predicted mixture master curves suggested that the aged binder from RAS and RAP blends with the virgin binder less than 40% and 60%, respectively. Cracking tests were also conducted to validate the proposed degrees of blending from a mixture mechanical performance point of view.