Performance of Bituminous Mixes Containing Treated Recycled Concrete Aggregates and Modified by Waste Polyethylene

Abstract

Waste utilization in the form of recycling is important for sustainability in the transportation construction industry. In this study, an attempt was made to explore the use of recycled concrete aggregate (RCA) and waste polyethylene from milk packaging (WPMP) in bituminous paving mixes. RCA was pretreated with bituminous emulsion to reduce its water absorption, and in this paper is referred as pretreated recycled concrete aggregate (PRCA). Dense bituminous macadam (DBM) paving mixes were prepared individually using PRCA, RCA, and natural aggregate (NA) representing the coarse aggregate fraction, each being modified with WPMP. The performance of the different bituminous mixes was investigated in terms of Marshall test parameters, indirect tensile strength, moisture susceptibility, dynamic modulus, flow number, resilient modulus, and rutting. It was observed that the PRCA and RCA mixes in general satisfy the requirements in terms of Marshall test parameters and moisture susceptibility. Also, from the other performance tests, it was observed that the mixes containing PRCA with WPMP produce better results compared with DBM mixes prepared with conventional aggregates.