Effects of Short-Term Aging on Asphalt Binders and Hot Mix Asphalt at Elevated Temperatures and Extended Aging Time

The production process of Hot Mix Asphalt (HMA) causes a short term aging (STA) to asphalt binder due to the heating of both asphalt binder and aggregates before mixing together. Laboratory protocols are followed to simulate the STA conditions for both asphalt binders and asphalt mixtures. STA protocols expose asphalt binders or asphalt mixtures to specific aging temperature for a specific period of time to produce stiffening that is similar to that of actual production conditions. Successful construction of HMA in cold season/regions may require elevating the production temperature of HAM to achieve proper compaction of HMA layers. Producing HMA mixtures at elevated temperatures may cause further increase in the binder stiffness and negatively affect the future field performance of asphalt pavements. This negative affect can be even worse especially if it is coupled with extended exposer time increase. This study aims to investigate effect of elevated production (mixing and STA) temperatures and exposure time on the stiffening of binders and asphalt mixtures. The binder experiment involved aging of two Performance Graded (PG) binders (PG 76-16 and PG 64-22) at two different temperatures and aging durations. The asphalt mixture experiment involved the STA of asphalt mixtures produced in the laboratory at mixing and STA temperatures 25°F above standard practice and aging time 2 and 4 hours longer than standard practices. The effect of different aging times and temperatures was investigated by running viscosity tests on binders and dynamic modulus |E∗| and Indirect Diametrical Strength (IDT) tests on asphalt mixtures. The results showed that increasing the mixing and STA temperatures by 25°F seems to have no significant effect on the asphalt mixture properties while doubling the standard STA time seems to have a significant effect on binder and asphalt mixture properties.