Bitümlü sıcak karışımların kısa ve uzun dönem yaşlandırılması

The major function of the road is to provide a good ride quality and serviceability during its service life. The predicted performance and service life of the asphalt pavement depend largely on the properties of bitumen used in the mixtures. Increases in traffic volume, production errors and heavy climatic conditions cause deformations which are directly related to the aging of the bitumen. Aging is described as the hardening, loss of volatile components and oxidation of the bitumen. In previous researches, the bitumen has been aged separately and then added to the asphalt mixture, but in reality bitumen ages gradually in the asphalt mixture. In this study, the bituminous mixture aging was performed instead of bitumen aging in order to represent the aging in the field in the best possible way. This thesis aims to evaluate the aging procedures of hot mix asphalt with the current standard (AASHTO R30) (Standard Practice For Mixture Conditioning of Hot Mix Asphalt Standard) as well as alternative methods (NCHRP 09-52, NCHRP 09-54 and RILEM) by way of indirect tensile strength test. The level of aging has also been compared with the samples taken from recently constructed pavement surface and from the five years old pavement surface. Results depicted that, laboratory aging methods revealed the field aging properties on the unaged bitumen.