Study of Pavement Performance of Thin-Coat Waterborne Epoxy Emulsified Asphalt Mixture

• Main Authors: Xu Cai, Wenke Huang, Juan Liang, Kuanghuai Wu
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2020-04-01
• Series: Frontiers in Materials
• Subjects: waterborne epoxy resin; emulsified asphalt mixture; thin-layer coating; open-graded friction course; road performance
• Online Access: https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fmats.2020.00088/full

Waterborne epoxy emulsified asphalts (WEEA) have high densities, good chemical stabilities, and high viscosities. However, they have problems in terms of overly high stiffness and low-temperature brittleness when applied as thin-coat asphalt mixtures. In this study, testing was conducted to obtain the optimal mixing ratio for WEEA. Anti-sliding, rutting, water stability, Cantabro, and low-temperature bending tests were carried out to evaluate the performance of thin coating layers formed from open graded friction course (OGFC)-5 WEEA mixtures, with the results indicating that the optimal ratio of waterborne epoxy resin emulsion and curing agent was 2:1 and that the dosage of waterborne epoxy resin should be maintained between 15 and 30%. The surface texture depth and British Pendulum Number (BPN) of the OGFC-5 WEEA mixtures were larger than 0.91 mm and 77.4, respectively, and the WEEA mixtures had better water stabilities and spalling resistance performance than a mixture without WEEA. Waterborne epoxy resin dosages of 15 and 30% resulted in WEEA mixture stabilities of up to 4,285 and 8,798 times/mm, respectively, and tensile strengths at −10°C of 2.204 and 4.727 MPa, respectively. The relatively good pavement functional and low-temperature performance of the optimized OGFC-5 WEEA mixture suggest its usefulness as a pavement maintenance material.