Second Life for Plastic Fibre Waste Difficult to Recover: Partial Replacement of the Binder in Asphalt Concrete Mixtures by Dry Incorporation

ABSTRACT: In previous studies, different additives and modifiers have been studied to improve the properties of asphalt concrete mixtures, whose main failures are plastic deformation and cracking. In this research, the improvement of the properties of asphalt concrete mixtures were investigated by i...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Ballester Ramos, Mireia, Miera Domínguez, Helena, Lastra González, Pedro|||0000-0002-4573-6973, Castro Fresno, Daniel|||0000-0001-5658-3901
Format: article
Publication Date:2023
Country:España
Institution:Universidad de Cantabria (UC)
Repository:UCrea Repositorio Abierto de la Universidad de Cantabria
Language:English
OAI Identifier:oai:repositorio.unican.es:10902/27750
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10902/27750
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:Asphalt mixture
Plastic fibre waste
Dry process
Binder replacement
Description
Summary:ABSTRACT: In previous studies, different additives and modifiers have been studied to improve the properties of asphalt concrete mixtures, whose main failures are plastic deformation and cracking. In this research, the improvement of the properties of asphalt concrete mixtures were investigated by introducing residual plastics as a substitute for virgin bitumen, which improves the sustainability of the mixtures. Furthermore, the results obtained from these new mixtures were compared with a mixture designed with polymer-modified bitumen (PMB). Ten experimental designs were tested with three types of waste fibre plastics from a municipal solid waste treatment plant and two percentages of bitumen replacement (15% and 25%). The experimental testing plan included air void characterization, moisture sensitivity, stiffness and fatigue resistance, among others. An increase of approximately 5% in voids could be observed when introducing the plastic material and therefore some tests were carried out to over-compact the specimens. The results showed an improvement in the mechanical performance of the experimental mixtures, highlighting the resistance against plastic deformations, which even reached similar values to the mixtures made with PMB.