This paper presents an extensive review of the pertinent literature regarding asphalt and asphalt mixture aging. Aging affects flexible pavement performance and is produced by intrinsic and extrinsic variables as well as exposure time. Intrinsic variables include asphalt and aggregate properties, a mixture's asphalt content, binder film thickness and air void content; extrinsic variables are associated with production (short-term aging) and exposure to environmental field conditions (long-term aging). Taken together, both variables demonstrate that aging results from three distinct mechanisms: volatilisation, oxidation and steric hardening. Temperature, pressure and photo degradation treatments are used to simulate aging in the laboratory and empirical and semi-empirical models are created to represent and study aging. Aging increases asphalt complex modulus and decreases the phase angle. Mixtures become stiffer while fatigue life becomes reduced. Carbonyl and sulfoxide group formation in asphalt are often studied as such chemical changes show oxidation in aged asphalts. The prevailing models used to predict asphalt aging are discussed, though more comprehensive research into asphalt aging is still needed.

Cyclic stresses due to passing wheels impose an accumulation of permanent strains in layers of unbound granular materials (UGMs) of flexible pavements. The hollow cylinder triaxial test would be the most appropriate test to simulate the in situ stress conditions but it is difficult to perform on UGMs due to their large maximum grain size. The simpler axisymmetric cyclic triaxial test does not consider the shear stress components. It can be performed with a constant confining pressure (CCP) or a variable confining pressure (VCP). CCP and VCP tests are commonly assumed to deliver similar residual and resilient strains as long as the average stress is the same. Thus, the simpler CCP test is mostly used in pavement engineering. However, this assumption is based on limited test data in the literature and may not be on the safe side. The present paper documents a comparative study of CCP and VCP tests on UGM. The study is mainly dedicated to the permanent deformations. The results show that only for some specia...

The present paper discusses the application of a high-cycle accumulation (HCA) model originally developed for sand for the prediction of permanent deformations in an unbound granular material (UGM) used for base and subbase layers in pavements. Cyclic triaxial tests on precompacted samples of an UGM have been performed in order to validate and calibrate the model. The stress amplitude, the initial density, and the average stress were varied. The test results are compared to those of air-pluviated samples of sand (subgrade material). Some significant differences in the behavior of both materials under cyclic loading are outlined. It is demonstrated that the functions describing the intensity of accumulation can be maintained for an UGM with different material constants, but that the flow rule must be generalized in order to describe the anisotropy. Recalculations of the laboratory tests show a good prediction of the modified HCA model.

The growth of the world population has increased the production of wastes. These are generally incinerated or deposited in outdoor landfills, which impacts the environment and affects human health. A technique that allows to reuse of wastes and diminishes adverse effects on the environment is pyrolysis. Through this technique, a material known as Biochar (BC) is produced, which has proven to have interesting physical-chemical properties for it to be used as an asphalt modifier, and simultaneously, helps to mitigate negative impacts on the environment. The foregoing article presents a bibliographical review on the use of BC as a modifier for asphalt binders and asphalt mixes. This has the purpose of becoming a starting point for future research efforts. In the reviewed literature, there was no review found on this topic. In general terms, BC increases the performance of asphalt binders in high-temperature climates, and tends to reduce its performance in low-temperature ones. Few studies have evaluated the performance of BC on asphalt mixes and the long-term properties associated with durability. Based on the reviewed literature, at the end of the article, recommendations are provided for future study topics.