Investigation of rheological properties of bituminous binders under ultraviolet aging effect

Flexible pavements are formed with bituminous hot mix pavement layers; Today, it has become the most preferred road pavement due to its driving comfort and convenience, easy maintenance and repair under traffic load, being able to be opened to traffic in a short time, and is recyclable. Bitumen is defined as having viscoelastic and thermoplastic properties; While it shows elastic behavior at high loading rates due to its viscoelastic feature, its consistency can change with the effect of temperature due to its thermoplastic feature, its strength is low at high temperatures, and it exhibits a hight strength at low temperatures but it turns into that prone to crack formation by exhibiting a rigid behavior. Traditional bituminous asphalt pavements don't always perform as expected due to the effects of the external environment and the deterioration of the materials inside over time. The most important feature that directly affects the performance of asphalt pavements is their durability. The durability of the binder is expressed by its resistance to hardening. The hardening and brittleness of bitumen for various reasons are expressed as "aging" or "time-dependent aging". In this master's thesis, it is aimed to test a AKÜ ultraviolet aging device (AKU UV) which simulates the real aging conditions of bituminous binders in the laboratory and is quite expensive. On this device, the samples were prepared by laying the bitumen samples in a thichness of 3 mm on the tray, and the samples were exposed to UV aging and the changes in the rheological properties were determined by standard bitumen tests such as the Softening Point, Penetration, Ductility, Rotational Viscosity, Dynamic Shear Rheometer (DSR), Rolling Thin Film Oven Test (RTFOT), Pressure Aging Vessel Test (PAV). Experimental study results show that the AKÜ UV aging device simulates the short-term aging of bitumen very well and allows the aging effects to be examined under laboratory conditions. In future studies, it is thought that long-term aging results can be simulated by testing the effect of AKU UV device on samples after RTFOT.